Posts Tagged ‘vegetarian’

Is It a Fruit Or Vegetable?

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Combining fruits and vegetables is it a No No or Ok?

Well this is a good question and I get it all the time, people say but aren’t you not supposed to combine fruit with vegetables. You read in the books that it is not good to combine these two.

The next question comes to mind is, what is a vegetable and what is a fruit? Could we be confusing fruits with vegetables.

When I thought about this for a while, I came up with a fruit grows on a tree or a vine.

Vegetables grow in the ground and are tubers like a carrot or parsnip.

But then you have the green leafy vegetable like cabbage and spinach as well as flower type like broccoli and artichokes etc.

So what is a fruit?  Are tomatoes a fruit, I say yes.
Capsicums and chillies are they fruits, I also say yes.
What about cucumbers, zucchini and pumpkin they all grow on a vine are they fruits? Well maybe they are fruits not vegetables.

Broccoli and cauliflower are flowers and so are artichokes, they are a category all of there own, are they fruits or vegetables?
I think they may come under fruits. What do you think?

Spinach, Kale, lettuce are all green leaf vegetables and are another category, I think of these as foliage.

Then there is the root vegetables that are the tubers or rhizomes, like potatoes, kumura, swede, beetroot etc. These are definitely vegetables.

I put into my  smoothies both raw fruits and vegetables, I don’t have trouble digesting them.

The foliage works very well with the fruit, even monkeys will wrap a piece of fruit in a leaf and eat it. If they do it by instinct then it must be Ok. Our digestive systems are the closet to primates.

Green smoothies contain fruits and green foliage and they are digested very easily to create an abundance of energy.

Apple carrot and ginger make a very nice juice and here we have 2 root vegetables and one fruit.

Avocado goes very well with broccoli and cauliflower as well as green leafy salad.

I think that putting fresh raw fruits and vegetables together is fine.

If you are having trouble digesting any combination then you should look at the gut integrity to determine whether this could be compromised, or that some intolerance’s may have been developed due to this compromise. Eating these foods raw will help to correct any gut issues.

Is it important as to whether it is fruit or a vegetable, I think not really, if it works together for flavor and digestion what is the problem.

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Posted in General Health, Healthy Eating, Raw Food | No Comments »

Juicing or Smoothie Which is Better?

Sunday, March 28th, 2010

Juicing raw fresh fruits and vegetables is a great way to up the nutrition in your diet. But what is best, juicing or smoothies?

There are two types of juicing machines, centrifugal and the extractor. The centrifugal juicing machine spins at high speed forcing the pulp and the juice to separate. There is heat produced by the high speed in this method that can cause slight degradation of the nutrients. The higher speed the machine can reach equates to the faster the juice is produced. The theory  is that the less time required the less heat produced.

These machines produce instant juice and easy to clean.

The extractor machine uses a slower grinding method which doesn’t produce any heat so the nutrient value is retained. This method is much, much slower and the food must be cut up quite small to go into the shoot, as well as manually pushed into the machine.

These machines are quite substantially more expensive, slower and require a more extensive clean up job.

Both methods can produce good raw nutrient rich juice, which is great way to get a natural daily vitamin and mineral dose.

A smoothie is produced in a Blender. You just cut up the raw fruits or vegetables and put in the blender, add water and blend until smooth. Depending on the power of the blending machine, the time taken to make this will vary. Heat can also be produced it the blending process is to long.

Blending hard root type vegetables like carrots and beetroot will require a powerful blender like the Vita Mix which rotates at up to  37,000 RPM or a machine of similar power. These machines can be rather costly in New Zealand. But well worth the cost.

The difference between the juicing method and the smoothie method is the fibre.

Juicing  separates juice from fibre, and the fibre is thrown away, we consume the nutrient rich juice.

Smoothie retains the fibre, the whole raw fruit or vegetable are used.

Fibre is a very important part of the vegetable and fruit; it keeps it together. It is a very important part of our diet as well; fibre is what gathers up and sweeps out the waste and toxic substances in the bowel that is not absorbed by the body during the digestion process.

Fibre helps the body to balance the blood sugars and keep the body’s insulin levels stable. It stops the blood sugar spiking and is very helpful in hypoglycemia and diabetes.

Many people with health issues  like hypoglycemia and diabetes are advised not to eat fruits as they are high in sugar, but in fact a green fruit smoothie is actually going to be much better for them than the cookie or any other snack food.

Removing the fibre from your food can lead to the malfunction of the bowel. Natural plant fibre is often both water and fat soluble, and the best fibre for the bowel.

Nutrients can be either water or fat soluble so the fibre plays a role in the absorption of some nutrients as well.

Back to the question of whether it is better to be Juicing or making Smoothies. I think that the smoothie has more merit due to the retention of the fibre. However, both are great sources of nutrition.

I suggest that if you are juicing that you add some of the pulp fibre back into the juice before you drink it. Or you can add psyllium hulls as a substitute fibre.

Basic Green Smoothie (for one)

1 apple

1 kiwifruit

200 ml of water

1 ½ cups of fresh well washed spinach ( or any other dark leafy green vegetable)

2 pitted dates (optional)

Peel and chop kiwifruit and apple, place with the rest of the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy.

Berry Fruity Smoothie

2 persimmons peeled and chopped

1 cup fresh orange juice or water

1/2 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries or cranberries

1 heaped tbsp Yoghurt (Optional)

Instructions:

Place all ingredients into the Blender and Blend until smooth and serve.

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Posted in Healthy Eating, Raw Food, Recipes | 3 Comments »

Why I mainly eat raw food and I don’t like eating meat.

Monday, November 9th, 2009

I have been gradually becoming a vegetarian, I only eat about one piece of meat a month lately although I do still eat some fish. I haven’t missed it and I feel that my body is much better for it.

I’m not in any way suggesting that everyone become vegetarians as it isn’t for everyone and it is a personal choice. But the raw energy of the living food is such a powerful thing that If you eat a variation of plenty of fresh RAW fruits, vegetables, nuts seeds, and sprouts you will have no need for animal protein.

I want to share a theory of mine with you and please don’t get me wrong this is just my opinion. When a sheep or cattle beast is sold to the abatoire it is herded along with it peers into the yard then up the shoot into a truck, then it is transported to the meat works. When I think about how it must be for this creature I imagine that it would be terrified. It can smell the fear of all the other creatures in the truck this intensifies its terror.

When you are terrified your adrenal glands that is situated above you kidney sends out a flood of adrenal hormones (cortico-steroids). These hormones are flowing free in the blood, this blood is pumped around the body and back to the heart in less than a minute. It is flowing to all of your muscles and tissues of the entire body and puts them on red alert, every muscle is tense. This is called the fear or flight  situation also known as the  sabre-tooth tiger syndrome. This happens naturally so that you will have the superhuman strength to run from the tiger.

Once the beast arrives at the abatoire it can smell blood this sends it into a frenzy and more fear, more hormones.

These animals are just like us and are very capable of the same kind of fear as we are and if you just think about it for a few seconds you will get the picture.

At the moment of death these animals have possibly had hours of this state the hormones have flooded every muscle of this beast. The meat that will be a product of this process, will have those fear endorsed hormones right throughout it.

Now for my theory!

We live in a world full of fear, hatred, paranoia and depression all  these emotions fuel the wars and physical, mental, sexual and drug abuse. Eating meat that is full of all that fear and terror has to have some impact on us.

I believe that this is one of the reasons that we have so much of Fear Hatred and Paranoia in our world.

Where eating raw lush leafy green living food that is full of nutrients and live energy gives us the life force of the plant that the fruit, vegetable or seed came from.

This can only give us health and energy, filling us with love and giving emotions, compared to fear and paranoia depression emotions.

If you wish to eat animal products then I would suggest that you only eat Farm killed as this is a totally different picture as well and free range eggs.

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