Raw food diet, best way to eat it.

Ilona

I have started to eat a lot of my vegetables and fruit raw, made into smoothies. This is supposed to be more beneficial to your health than cooking them. I must say some of them taste absolutely yummy, and I am starting to feel more alert and have more energy.

However someone has suggested to me that I am destroying the beneficial roughage by whizzing them in the blender. I find it easier to eat them this way because I takes me ages to chew hard vegetables like carrots and cabbage.

I have been reading up a lot about food nutrition in library books and web sites, but I can't find any reference to this question, to blend or not to blend, or maybe blend a bit but not pulverise. Anyone know the answer?
Ilona

Bronnie

How about shredded salads?

Particularly easy if you've got a food processor, so you can very finely shred raw veg like onion, cabbage , peppers, carrot, beetroot and celery.

However I don't think your body needs the mass of roughage, equivalent to the mass of veg that goes into a smoothie! Some wholegrain carbs, nuts or pulses, a couple of whole apples, a salad or some carrot sticks will be otherwise be fine for keeping things bulked-up and moving along nicely each day.

I would otherwise continue to enjoy your smoothies as you prefer them.

adelight

What rubbish! You still get the whole vegetable, you just don't have to chew it. I think smoothies are wonderful, it helps you get in lots of fruit and veg really easily. Drinking a glass of smoothie containing 3 portions of f&v is much faster, easier and sometimes tastier than eating them individually whole. There's no way I could eat a banana, cup of berries, cup of spinach and half an avocado before 8am without smoothies- I love them!!
I think the NHS say you should only have 2 servings of f/v as a smoothie because they want to encourage people to eat whole fruits and veg with meals and not just have sugary fruit smoothies. They don't say the same about blended soups!

Mojisola

The problem with blending the fruit and vegetables is that the natural sugars in them will be absorbed more quickly than if they stay tied up in the fibre until your gut digests them. Part of the extra energy you've got will be from a sugar high.

Ilona

Thank you for your replies. :beer:
Ilona

jenniewb

You do lose some of the benefits on drinking your fruit and veg rather then drinking it. The fibers get partially desroyed and so the vitamins start to die off. If you were to take out all the fiber and drink juice a lot more of the vitamin content is lost so a smoothie is better then drinking juice as there are some fibers but they wont have as many vitamins or antioxidants then eating your fruit and vegetables.

Its partly to do with your body working to break down the fibers and digest things more fully with food you bite rather then smoothies which don't need to be chewed but also works a bit like the over cooking deal: you lose some vitamins and minerals when you boil, less if you steam and have most if you eat things raw- hence the raw diet your on being better then eating cooked veg? It works the same way with smoothies compared to the chewable version!

Added to that your body benefits from the fiber in fruit and vegetables, its said (government not me!) that in terms of your 5-a-day you can only count 1 of those from a juice or smoothie-even if they are made from several different types of fruit/vegetable as you need variation, theres a limited amount of vitamins which your body can get from what it consumes so if you ate for example 5 apples in 1 day you'd still only have 1 portion (if you ate 1 you'd still have that same 1 portion). Variation matters a lot.

Have you tried (OP) things like cherry tomatos? They can be really easy to pick on and eat on the go (without thinking so not such a big deal if your having problems eating enough!) also things like carrot sticks, cucumber, peppers or celery sticks with humous, balsamic vinegar, guacomole or a salsa dip? Sounds like a very interesting diet, your gut is going to love you

Mojisola

jenniewb wrote: »

you lose some vitamins and minerals when you boil, less if you steam and have most if you eat things raw- hence the raw diet your on being better then eating cooked veg?

This isn't always true. We can access the nutrition in some food much better after it's been cooked - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=raw-veggies-are-healthier

We have been cooking our food for so long that our teeth, jaws and digestive system have adapted to having softer foods.

beautifylife

I have been on a raw living diet for 6 yrs and then on high raw for several years since. There seems to be different schools of thought and it also changes as more info becomes available.

Personally I like to blend, it's easier on the teeth, still you can "chew" your smoothie to ensure digestion in the mouth that is important too.

Keep researching, listen to what works for your body, I always like to look at the results of the person giving the advice. Do they look healthy etc are they getting the benefits you want?

adelight

beautifylife wrote: »

I have been on a raw living diet for 6 yrs and then on high raw for several years since. There seems to be different schools of thought and it also changes as more info becomes available.

Personally I like to blend, it's easier on the teeth, still you can "chew" your smoothie to ensure digestion in the mouth that is important too.

Keep researching, listen to what works for your body, I always like to look at the results of the person giving the advice. Do they look healthy etc are they getting the benefits you want?

:T I really admire anyone who can live raw, even 50% raw! Do you have any favourite online resources, blogs or books you can recommend?

In general the nutrients gained from cooking vegetables is a lot less than the other nutriets lost. That article talks a lot about lycopene but the difference in lycopene between cooked and raw tomatoes is actually quite small. It's something along the lines of 1 cup cooked = 1.5 cup raw = 7 sun dried tomatoes have the same amounts of lycopene. You can also get the same amount from ~150g slice watermelon or two pink/red grapefruits. I love cooked tomato sauces too much to ever give up

Mojisola

beautifylife wrote: »

I have been on a raw living diet for 6 yrs and then on high raw for several years since. There seems to be different schools of thought and it also changes as more info becomes available.

Personally I like to blend, it's easier on the teeth, still you can "chew" your smoothie to ensure digestion in the mouth that is important too.

Keep researching, listen to what works for your body, I always like to look at the results of the person giving the advice. Do they look healthy etc are they getting the benefits you want?

Do you eat raw meat? If not, do you take B12 supplements?

I think you're right about different ways of eating suiting different people. If you look at the variety of ways people eat around the world and stay healthy, it shows just how wide a range of foods humans can live off.

If your choice of food keeps you healthy in the long term, it obviously suits your body, metabolism and gut flora.

I have seen research into people eating only raw food and all the trials resulted in the participants losing a lot of weight and failing to keep up their nutritional status.

beautifylife

Hi to answer a couple of the questions. No I don't eat raw meat, it's raw living foods way of eating which means like vegan but no other cooked foods, no bread, pasta, eggs, cheese, fish etc currently I follow more of a high raw veggie diet, still have cheese, some cooked foods like bread, however I'm really wanting to return to a very high raw diet without the bread, cheese etc.

I think a few supplements that are important are B12, D3, sea veggie (e.g. seaweeds, dulse etc) really good for hair, nails, they have lots of the minerals we need.

I would recommend the Fresh Network (just google them) , based in south they have an online website very helpful, and resources, a magazine which helps with transitioning etc. I've attended workshops and know the original owner. It's a good place to start, you can easily become overwhelmed with information when really looking at things. I would say start looking into one resource area first and then go to the next. Sometimes we can get distracted with lots of bright shiny objects and it can be very confusing.

Always follow your gut, what really speaks to you? Try and test it, if it works keep doing it! I would also look into sprouting, very nutritious, very cheap to do and adds lots of enzymes into your digestion. A good,simple and well priced book is "the sprouters handbook" Edward Cairney.