12 Steps to Whole Foods
Bye-Bye, Stimulants — Hello, Green Smoothies Bring one to work the next day for your coworker, and spread the word as your good deed for the day! Pretty soon your whole office will be converted. People love a live demo, if you’re willing to bring your turbo blender and greens to work—but I’ve given very detailed instructions in my “template recipe,” and you can also guide others to my three-minute YouTube green smoothie demo (www.tiny.cc/0dSxR). What about E Coli? I’m often asked about whether I’m scared of spinach after the E Coli scare in 2006. I’m not afraid of it at all. A 10-year study done by the Centers for Disease Control proved that eating raw plant foods is the safest strategy, because less than 1/10 of 1% of food-borne diseases are caused by raw plant foods. All the others are caused by animal and/or cooked foods. In fact, I’m pretty sure my kids and I ate some E Coli-tainted spinach, a couple of days in a row, during the outbreak in 2006. I barely noticed it. People with healthy gastrointestinal tracts who are eating excellent nutrition every day are not the ones who succumb to parasites and intestinal bacteria. If you eat plenty of raw, nutrition-dense plant fiber and stay away from foods that compromise your immune function, after a possible initial cleansing period, you will likely find that you go through the winter without falling prey to the viruses that are felling everyone around you. Should I blanche my greens before freezing them? In a word, no! Blanching (or quick-boiling) kills all the enzymes and many other nutrients as well. It’s an “old wives’ tale” that there is some benefit in this practice, which ruins perfectly good raw plant food. Just wash your greens, put them in quart or gallon Ziploc freezer bags, suck the air out with a straw to minimize the space they take in the freezer, zip tight, and freeze. You can then put frozen greens in your blender later. What about oxalates? A popular and growing theory and opinion among those interested in nutrition is that greens (especially spinach) are high in oxalates and should be avoided because they cause kidney stones or gallbladder problems, since oxalates may interfere with absorption of calcium from the body. Another popular opinion is that cooking spinach renders the oxalates harmless. In fact, a review of the peer-reviewed research reveals that the ability of oxalates to lower calcium absorption is small and does not outweigh the ability of those foods to contribute significant calcium to the diet, since spinach is rich in calcium. A few rare health conditions require oxalate restriction: absorptive hypercalciuria type II, enteric hyperoxaluria, and primary hyperoxaluria. These are not the more common condition wherein kidney stones are formed. The research is not clear that restricting foods such as spinach helps prevent stones in those who have previously had them. Many researchers believe that dietary restriction cannot reduce risk of stone formation. In fact, some foods that were assumed to increase stone formation because of oxalate content (like black tea) have appeared in more recent research to have a preventative effect. Further, cooking has a small impact (about 10%) on the oxalate content of foods, with no statistically significant lowering of oxalates following blanching or boiling of greens. It appears that the nutritional advantages of eating raw greens continue to far outweigh any benefit of cooking them. Dr. Norman W. Walker says the following about oxalates in the “Vegetable Juices - Uses and Benefits” chapter of his book Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices: What’s Missing in Your Body? Spinach should never be eaten when cooked unless we are particularly anxious to accumulate oxalic acid crystals in our kidneys with the consequent pain and kidney trouble. When spinach is cooked or canned, the oxalic acid atoms become inorganic as a result of excessive heat and may form oxalic acid crystals in the kidneys. 38 12 Steps to Whole Foods © Copyright Robyn Openshaw
Bye-Bye, Stimulants — Hello, Green Smoothies When the food is raw, whether whole or in the form of juice, every atom in such food is vital ORGANIC and is replete with enzymes. Therefore, the oxalic acid in our raw vegetables and their juices is organic, and as such is not only beneficial but essential for the physiological functions of the body. The oxalic acid in cooked and processed foods, however, is definitely dead, or INORGANIC, and as such is both pernicious and destructive. Oxalic acid readily combines with calcium. If these are both organic, the result is a beneficial constructive combination, as the former helps the digestive assimilation of the latter, at the same time stimulating the peristaltic functions in the body. When the oxalic acid has become INORGANIC by cooking or processing the foods that contain it, then this acid forms an interlocking compound with the calcium even combining with the calcium in other foods eaten during the same meal, destroying the nourishing value of both. This results in such a serious deficiency of calcium that it has been known to cause decomposition of the bones. 4 Two other classes of nutritional compounds, purines and goitrogens, are found in some leafy greens such as spinach. Eating “excessive” amounts of spinach or cruciferous vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower, for instance) containing these compounds can be a problem for people who suffer with gout, kidney stones, or low thyroid hormone production. These chemical compounds are also found in peanuts, strawberries, soy products, and other foods as well. However, the literature seems to support that a few weekly servings of these foods is a good idea for almost everyone. 5 Sugar Restrictions and Sweeteners for Smoothies If you are diabetic, hypoglycemic, or trying to cut down on sugar, using stevia as your smoothie sweetener is wise if you want to use any sweetener at all. Stevia is 100 times sweeter than sugar, but it is derived from an herb and is natural (though processors do add fillers to the powdered versions and a base to the liquid versions), so you can use ¼ to ½ tsp. to sweeten a full blender of smoothie. You can purchase stevia either powdered or liquid form at any health food store. In Asia, stevia has been widely used and well known for decades, although it has not been studied in clinical trials. Many forces, including governmental ones, conspired to keep stevia out of the hands of American consumers for many years, even banning it from the shelves of stores selling food. This was not because of any consumer complaints about side effects (no side effects of stevia have been documented as of this writing), but because of the monopolistic chokehold that the manufacturers of the artificial sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet) had on the American food industry. I believe the erosion of aspartame’s power, as it began to give way to Splenda (much like saccharin gave way to aspartame many years ago), created the opportunity for stevia to become accepted in the western hemisphere. Aspartame’s current decline can be directly attributed to the fact that of over 4,000 food additives approved by the FDA, aspartame has more health-related complaints than all the other food additives put together! © Copyright Robyn Openshaw 12 Steps to Whole Foods 39
- Page 9 and 10: Table of Contents Parmesan Flax Cra
- Page 11 and 12: Table of Contents Nut Milk (3) . .
- Page 13 and 14: About the Author Robyn Openshaw gre
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- Page 23 and 24: Foreword By family physician Denise
- Page 25 and 26: Foreword GSG nutrition is compatibl
- Page 27 and 28: Preface You’ve always wanted to e
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- Page 31 and 32: Introduction What Is the Goal of Th
- Page 33 and 34: Introduction Finally, have a basic
- Page 35 and 36: Introduction Nutrition is no differ
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- Page 39 and 40: Introduction sugary foods for even
- Page 41 and 42: Introduction Don’t I Need to Eat
- Page 43 and 44: Introduction Fourth, I strongly rec
- Page 45 and 46: Introduction Document any “cleans
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- Page 49 and 50: Introduction business, family—the
- Page 51 and 52: CHAPTER 1 Bye-Bye, Stimulants — H
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- Page 75 and 76: CHAPTER 2 Making Salad the Star You
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- Page 97 and 98: CHAPTER 3 Dressing Up Your Salads Y
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- Page 105 and 106: Dressing Up Your Salads Strawberry-
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Bye-Bye, Stimulants — Hello, Green Smoothies<br />
Bring one <strong>to</strong> work the next day for your coworker, and spread the word as your good deed for the day! Pretty<br />
soon your whole office will be converted. People love a live demo, if you’re willing <strong>to</strong> bring your turbo blender<br />
and greens <strong>to</strong> work—but I’ve given very detailed instructions in my “template recipe,” and you can also guide<br />
others <strong>to</strong> my three-minute YouTube green smoothie demo (www.tiny.cc/0dSxR).<br />
What about E Coli? I’m often asked about whether I’m scared of spinach after the E Coli scare in 2006. I’m<br />
not afraid of it at all. A 10-year study done by the Centers for Disease Control proved that eating raw plant<br />
foods is the safest strategy, because less than 1/10 of 1% of food-borne diseases are caused by raw plant foods.<br />
All the others are caused by animal and/or cooked foods.<br />
In fact, I’m pretty sure my kids and I ate some E Coli-tainted spinach, a couple of days in a row, during the<br />
outbreak in 2006. I barely noticed it. People with healthy gastrointestinal tracts who are eating excellent<br />
nutrition every day are not the ones who succumb <strong>to</strong> parasites and intestinal bacteria. If you eat plenty of raw,<br />
nutrition-dense plant fiber and stay away from foods that compromise your immune function, after a possible<br />
initial cleansing period, you will likely find that you go through the winter without falling prey <strong>to</strong> the viruses<br />
that are felling everyone around you.<br />
Should I blanche my greens before freezing them? In a word, no! Blanching (or quick-boiling) kills all the<br />
enzymes and many other nutrients as well. It’s an “old wives’ tale” that there is some benefit in this practice,<br />
which ruins perfectly good raw plant food. Just wash your greens, put them in quart or gallon Ziploc freezer<br />
bags, suck the air out with a straw <strong>to</strong> minimize the space they take in the freezer, zip tight, and freeze. You can<br />
then put frozen greens in your blender later.<br />
What about oxalates? A popular and growing theory and opinion among those interested in nutrition is that<br />
greens (especially spinach) are high in oxalates and should be avoided because they cause kidney s<strong>to</strong>nes or<br />
gallbladder problems, since oxalates may interfere with absorption of calcium from the body. Another popular<br />
opinion is that cooking spinach renders the oxalates harmless.<br />
In fact, a review of the peer-reviewed research reveals that the ability of oxalates <strong>to</strong> lower calcium absorption is<br />
small and does not outweigh the ability of those foods <strong>to</strong> contribute significant calcium <strong>to</strong> the diet, since<br />
spinach is rich in calcium. A few rare health conditions require oxalate restriction: absorptive hypercalciuria<br />
type II, enteric hyperoxaluria, and primary hyperoxaluria. These are not the more common condition wherein<br />
kidney s<strong>to</strong>nes are formed. The research is not clear that restricting foods such as spinach helps prevent s<strong>to</strong>nes<br />
in those who have previously had them. Many researchers believe that dietary restriction cannot reduce risk of<br />
s<strong>to</strong>ne formation. In fact, some foods that were assumed <strong>to</strong> increase s<strong>to</strong>ne formation because of oxalate content<br />
(like black tea) have appeared in more recent research <strong>to</strong> have a preventative effect.<br />
Further, cooking has a small impact (about 10%) on the oxalate content of foods, with no statistically<br />
significant lowering of oxalates following blanching or boiling of greens. It appears that the nutritional<br />
advantages of eating raw greens continue <strong>to</strong> far outweigh any benefit of cooking them.<br />
Dr. Norman W. Walker says the following about oxalates in the “Vegetable Juices - Uses and Benefits” chapter<br />
of his book Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Juices: What’s Missing in Your Body?<br />
Spinach should never be eaten when cooked unless we are particularly anxious <strong>to</strong> accumulate oxalic<br />
acid crystals in our kidneys with the consequent pain and kidney trouble. When spinach is cooked or<br />
canned, the oxalic acid a<strong>to</strong>ms become inorganic as a result of excessive heat and may form oxalic acid<br />
crystals in the kidneys.<br />
38 <strong>12</strong> <strong>Steps</strong> <strong>to</strong> <strong>Whole</strong> <strong>Foods</strong><br />
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw