Your whole food, plant-based life.

Finding Your Raw Food Balance

A good friend of mine posted a comment today on her Facebook page. She made tacos with walnuts and her ph level was more acidic. She was wondering if it was the walnuts. It could very well have been because walnuts are very acidic. But they also contain tons of health promoting nutrients. The good and the bad?

Let’s look at spinach, one of the most nutrient rich vegetables out there. It is full of vitamins, minerals and phyto nutrients. Spinach contains nutrients that fight inflammation and cancer. It also is full of anti-oxidants. Calorie for calorie it is said to have more nutrients than any other food. Sounds perfect? Not quite.

Spinach is one of the vegetables that is on the dirty dozen list, meaning one of the top 12 fruits and vegetables that pesticides are most frequently found on. Spinach also has measurable amounts of oxalates. Oxalates can cause problems for people with kidney issues and also interfere with calcium adsorption. It also contains purines which can lead to a build up of uric acid.

So, here we have the good and the bad of spinach. And lately, it seems you can read negative and positive about almost everything we put in our mouths. And I am talking about the healthy stuff.  So what do we do? Stop eating all together? Well, then we are left with air and water and everyone knows about the pollution issues associated with that!

Ok…I was a little tongue in cheek there but I think you can catch my drift. How do we deal with all of the information that bombards us? Moderation. Balance. Eat your spinach but not every day of the week, or at the exclusion of other greens. Mix it up. Go for variety. Eat a lot of different foods so you can get the different benefits from all of them. Cover your bases, so to speak. Oh…and buy organic spinach.

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15 Comments

  1. Fawn wrote on January 28, 2011

    Like others have said, great point, Susan. We are bombarded with the negatives of every food. Yin and yang. I eat a better variety of foods now that I’m raw than I ever did eating a SAD diet. But it’s still tempting to rely on my favorite raw dishes when I’m ravenous or in a hurry. As long as I stay in an experimental mode with recipes, variety is never an issue. Thanks for the breakdown on spinach.

    Reply
  2. Candy Stauffer wrote on January 28, 2011

    Susan, thanks for timely article. I always enjoy your to-the-point info.
    Faith and Blaine, good points. I enjoy reading through the comments, brings more depth to things that concern all of us re: eating raw. At the risk of repeating a comment I left in a previous post (Why Raw?), DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Don’t depend on someone spoonfeeding info, no matter who. That being said, there’s not a ton of research-based raw info out there. SO what to do? As Sia commmented: Listen to your body. Evaluate. Keep notes and logs, if you have existing health issues. You’ll soon find your balance.

    Reply
  3. Sia wrote on January 28, 2011

    The best path is to follow your body’s lead. If you get still and listen, your body will surely “talk” to you telling you exactly what will nourish it. Ideally, fasting for a few days to prep your intuitive skills and your synergy with your inner body is the way to begin.

    Reply
  4. Melomeals: Vegan for $3.33 a Day wrote on January 27, 2011

    You make a great point here. It can be totally crazy making to worry about the negatives of every single food we eat! I’d say the worry and stress can be at least as damaging as any negative ingredient in the food to begin with.

    Reply
  5. Kira wrote on January 26, 2011

    It is interesting, I have eaten raw for months then recently due to travel embarked on a cooked food “bonanza”. Did I feel awful??!! not really, but then I have to say …not as good. As much as I love delving into oxalates and antioxidents…I’m a biochemist so it speaks to my soul, I have to quantify what my body holistically FEELS after a change. To date, cooked is not evil, but raw “feels” better, at least in the short term (less than 6 mois).

    Cheers, Kira

    Reply
  6. Molly wrote on January 25, 2011

    This was a good article, thank you. I have found I have tummy troubles after eating nut-based dishes or marinades made with an oil base. Olive oil is the worst for my system. I still enjoy eating them but I pay for it later, just as if I had eating the same type of food in the SAD form. So I am learning how my body reacts to certain foods. It’s all a learning experience.

    Reply

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