Hello everyone

This is Puneet from India and am new to this website.I've experienced the positive effects and endless energy throughout the day by being on an almost raw food diet for 2 months (i didn't know dairy was 'cooked' too until then).

Feels really good to study from with wonderful website and i feel like i wasn't wrong in my conclusions on a raw and alkaline diet which, i most foolishly abandoned.

There only one question that's ringing me again and again about raw foods. I don't know about foreign countries, but would all the knowledgeable people here please come forward and answer this question for me- that what if raw vegetables and fruits have been injected with growth hormones to make their size grow in size twice overnight? Coz these things happen a lot in India. And in most parts of the world today, organic food just isn't there, forget about if u wanna pay any amount for it or not, but it just doesn't exist now in most parts of the world.

I understand that even if raw food has been injected, the enzymes present in it still make it more nutritious as compared to cooked food. But then again, as we know that every crop and tree today are sprayed with really toxic pesticides. And it's believed that boiling and cooking them (vegetables mostly for e.g.) destroys those toxins.

So if someone, or most people over here could give me any suggestions on how to solve this catch-22, i would be really grateful to you all!

Thanks
Puneet

P.S. One suggestion could be to eat things like coconut and dry fruits, as they are protected by coverings and aren't sprayed at. But one can only eat so much of them...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2010 05:42AM by jgpuneet.

Hello and welcome!

A question: it is not common practice for fruits and vegetables to be injected with growth hormone(I am wondering if you don't mean this literally, as it would be impossible). Rather, the plants may be hybridized or genetically modified to grow as resiliently as possible, and to produce fruit that is unnaturally large. Might you mean that the plants and the soil are fed/sprayed with something that causes them to grow very big?

We don't really know what genetically modified fruits and vegetables do to the human body, but many people eat those non GM super huge specimens that must have been overfertilized and they seem to be all right. As these foods are consumed cooked, however, it is hard to guess what the effects would be if eaten raw.

It is unfortunate that India is now a proving grounds for so many food species that are not natural and which are unsafely grown; many of these products/processes are not yet legal here, and there are organizations working here and in Europe to ensure they never are.

As for toxins on the surface of foods: a thorough rinsing in clear water, or a good 10-15 minute soak in a half water, half white vinegar solution, followed by a good rinsing with water, has been shown to eliminate most surface toxins, including most pesticides and herbicides. Cooking does not eliminate them; it does destroy surface pathogens, however.

I wouldn't advise over relying on dried fruit--this is unsustainable, and you really don't know what these fruits went through before they were dried. There must be a way for you to get naturally farmed produce from somewhere in your region. Here is a website that might help:

[www.satavic.org] Good luck : )

Hi tamukha!

Thanks for your in-depth reply. The web-ling that u provided seems to be really good. I'll try and check it out definitely. But other than that link, trust me when i say that organic food can hardly be found in India at all. There are no special stores etc which sell it in wholesale or retail.

And when i said about the growth hormones, i did mean it literally my friend! You will be amazed no end when i say that here in India, people inject injections into vegetables and fruits like watermelon etc in the night. And just overnight, the fruit or vegetable becomes almost double the previous night's size, and sometimes even bigger. They use some powders to ripen raw mangoes and bananas overnight. So, in essence, for e.g. the bananas do ripen and get soft, the pulp that is. The outer skin changes color from green to yellow overnight. But it's not sweet when u taste it. It still exudes a raw odour.

So my friend, these are the atrocities that happen in this country. The soil is laden with pesticides, milk from animals contains them coz the animals are fed pesticide sprayed food. Hence, it's a vicious chain. Toxins just can't be avoided here. Which brings us back to the question that i asked in my previous post. That given all these circumstances, does it make sense to actually cook food? Or if not, at least can it be inferred that eating such raw food could be dangerous to health?

For eg, many people have fallen ill here after consuming fruits like watermelon, which is injected with sweet water and chemicals to make it appear sweeter...So..all hell is loose in this country, lol. , so as always, looking forward to the next set of suggestions!

Truly
Puneet

Well, heat doesn't normally render toxins neutral, unless they are produced by bacteria. And that's not the case here. I must say I am baffled by your description of food injection; is this something grocers do? Becuase it would not be cost effective to do it on the farm. I still am not sure I understand what you are describing because it doesn't pertain to anything that goes on here that is scientific. There is nothing that I know of that would actually precipitate growth in plant cellular matter at the rate your are describing. Even growth hormone injected animals, which are common here, don't show effects for weeks. I'm sorry that I can't be of more help.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2010 06:58PM by Tamukha.

I believe he is referring to using plant growth hormones, it triggers the plant to basically grow at super speed, it works, but its thought it could be toxic to humans possibly, and they arent really sure what its long term effects will be...

It is so ghastly to know you can't get good food. I heard the other day that if one visits America ( I live in England) you will definately eat GM food unless you can be sure of eating organic food 100% of the time. In England it is definately possible to avoid GM foods if you know where to shop, what brands etc.

So I can believe that things are a lot worse in countries like India. I know that pesticides that are banned in Europe are still used in places like India and the poor farmers aren't even equipped with protective clothing.

I am interested in what Puneet has to say but would like some references.

Curator,

I'm not sure. I use auxin(a synthesized plant growth hormone) when I occasionally attempt plant grafts, but this is not what Puneet is describing--my spider plant or apple or whatever, doesn't suddenly double in size overnight with the therapy. I am actually dying for references, since there is nothing to be found on Google regarding injection of growth hormones directly into mature fruits.

Ive heard of it being done be4, and saw some experiments a long time ago a friend showed me literature on, but Ive never looked up anything on the internet about it, so I cant really confirm its existence, just that this isnt the first time ive heard of it being done in india.

i don't believe the farmers in the small village that i lived near in india used any sort of growth hormones, though pesticides i am uncertain of.....i had some of the funkiest, ugliest veggies i'd ever seen - but their taste was out of this world - so much more flavorful than the huge, gigantic ones on steroids.....i also believe that the food was more nutritious, as i ate, and was satisfied, on way less, than i do in the states....i want to move back to india.....

What part of India did you go too redfivenine?

Maybe it depends what part of India you are in, probably some parts are better than others. I imagine it is better is the south such as Kerala, I could be wrong as it is just a wild guess.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2010 08:07PM by Ariel55.

Hi

Thanks everyone for kicking in here. I'd like to stress it again that the seemingly unnatural almost double increase overnight, or at max., over a a period of a couple of days does take place with the growth injections injected in the fruits and vegetables.

It's not something that i alone am saying. This fact has been widely and hugely reported over all the major and smallest news channels all over India. The government is corrupt and inactive here as we all know. So it doesn't do anything to curb this practice. The wholesalers, farmers etc. almost everyone is involved in this dastardly act.

Numerous sting operations done by all major news channels in India have shown adulteration performed and artificial growth injections being given to- sugar, spices, pulses, all vegetables, all fruits save coconut i guess, thank God for that. Time and again, massive raids are conducted where gigantic quantities of artificial dairy products have been seized. For a taste of things, preview this- a lot of milk is made from talcum powder in India. Feel like throwing up? I didn't even mention the pesticides and toxins yet that it contains coz of the cows' and buffaloes' diet (grass etc) containing the same. And to think that most Indians HAVE to drink it. Coz they're too busy to feed their families, after evading the hefty unfair taxes. They have made peace with the fact they WILL get ill, coz the food isn't right anymore. But to counter that, they are happier earning more money than go ahead and protest what's going on. No wonder that all the major world pharma players are having a field day(call it a decade or later, maybe a century if this goes on) in India. Diabetes, coronary diseases, respiratory ones, you name it, we have everything by the millions, literally. All coz of poor nutrition, and even if one wants to change their habits, they can't coz of the inflated prices.

Fruits can't be bought by the majority of the Indians anyways coz their prices are tearing the ceilings. I could go on and on my friends. But this is a trailer of how things stand here. I myself can;t afford the fruits coz of their humungous prices. I workout a lot, and am feeling a bit tired right now on my raw vegan diet, coz everything's too damn expensive. So, i dunno, maybe i'll have to change back to the cancerous and toxic cooked food diet in a couple of days, lol. I pray not, but seems likely! Not out of craving one little bit mind you!

Well, putting this to rest for this while. Waiting for more input from you all. Again, the question's the same, Is it safe to ingest these kind of fruits and vegetables in the raw form? (Sorry, one more e.g.- a ripe banana has an alkaline balance,and a raw one has an acid one. In India, you'll mostly get bananas ripened through several chemicals, again, overnight! So in essence, the fruit appears ripe, with the outer peel all yellow. BUT, the sweet odour of the banana just isn't there. It still emits the unripe and not so appetizing aroma of a raw banana. And only someone who can identify this difference, can catch and come to know what he has bought.)

More so, a person who works-out, can't fulfill his carb and protein requirements from these foods. Seems a lot difficult. For once, let's leave the protein part. But the most essential part, the carb that is, is found wanting by the body.

Thanks for being with me on this topic until now, Hoping to learn something from this.

Peace
Puneet

They do the same to bananas over here in the U.S., I have no idea whether or not plants that have had that stuff injected into them are safe to eat, they may be, they might not be, my guess is that they probably arent...

OK, After an exhaustive Google search, I finally found some info on what Puneet seems to be talking about--the illegal injection of Oxytocin(the labor inducing drug) into mostly gourd fruit to increase its size and maintain the chlorophyll in its green parts from harvest to sale. This was limited to some farms in the Punjab and around New Delhi and apparently the government is regulating this better now. There were also reports of the use of calcium carbide, a banned chemical that was once used for fast ripening of fruits, for mostly mango crops. Again, as this has come to light, it has supposedly fallen out of favor.

These articles tended to suggest that competition for sale was the motivating factor; farmers don't want to poison the public, there are just too many mango plantations, for instance, vying for market share. So the produce that "looks" the freshest fetches the best price. This is exactly what was happening here until government started to regulate things with the Environmental Protection Act[Alar, anyone?] and other actions. You must have faith that this will happen in India. There is currently a HUGE pro-organics movement all over India, mostly because farmers are remembering that most native produce never needed chemicals in the first place, and growing things using field labor and naural pest management is cheaper. This is the difference from here: we have a greater variety of crops growing in regions that cannot support them, pecans in the deserts of the Southwest, for example, so it is much easier for chemical companies to make growers feel that poisons are essential to success. Also, there is a tendency among American growers to wish to limit production costs by limiting labor costs(the main reason we have an "illegal" problem here--business is stingy). Human labor has always been the backbone of Indian agriculture, so it is not as great a deciding factor in evaluating production methods.

Please do a Google search, Puneet, and you will be glad to see that the tide is slowly but surely turning against Monsanto, et al, and back towards traditional methods. There must be a way for you to source natural foods where you are. In any case, eating unnaturally grown foods cooked won't solve your problem; not enough is known about this application of Oxytocin and Calcium Carbide to know if they are neutralized by heat. I wish you luck and hope someone else posts here with more help : )

I live in Thailand and i have been told repeatedly by the same few people that ALL fruit is 'injected' here. i have no idea what they mean. but I think they mean with sugars and growth hormones.
they even said that the ORGANIC farms will buy-in LOADS of un-organic produce which they re-sell (under their organic label) to the supermarkets!

I hope its not true, but it sounds plausible. if you lived in thailand you would see how corrupt the country is and how easily led the vast majority of the countryside population are. apparently, if one farm does it, then all the other ones follow suit.

ok.
to make things easy:
IS THERE ANY TESTING KIT WE CAN BUY ONLINE TO CHECK FOR GROWTH HORMONES OR CERTAIN POPULAR UN-ORGANIC PESTICIDES ?

what would be the MAIN pesticides that one would want to check for? (or is the list too long?)

also: would the fruit bare any evidence of injection of sugars? would the sweetness all be concentrated in the centre?

as a rule, I NEVER eat skin of any fruit.. even organic. I just dont trust anything unfortunately.

easybullet,

Different crops are treated with different chemicals. Injection of produce isn't actually widespread; the cellular tissues of mature fruits and vegetables won't accomodate this. Growth promoting factors can be sprayed on certain crops while they are growing to promote bigger size--we do this for state fairs here, you know, blue ribbon winning gigantic pumpkins?--but not injected usually. These practices are not regulated outside the developed world, true. The easiest and cheapest way to do test whether there is anything chemically extraneous in your produce is to send samples off to a university agricultural extension department. Don't know what the Thai equivalent would be, though

Why are we eating raw food? One of the reasons is because we believe that all else being equal, such diet is more healthy than other diets.

Alas things are not always equal. And if one's goal is to eat a diet which is most healthy, one cannot but take into account the circumstances affecting the healthiness of the food.

If you live in a country where you have no access to organic food, or organic standards are poor or unreliable, and so fresh fruits and vegetables are likely to contain hormones and chemicals bad to your health (and you cannot grow your own etc), you have to take these circumstances into account. For example, say it is known that cooking such fruits and vegetables will reduce the number/effect of hormones and chemicals. Then you ought to abandon the raw food diet and cook your fruits and vegetables, because in your particular circumstances it is the cooked diet that is most healthy (which is what you try to achieve).

IMO of course, but for me it would be a no-brainer.

>Banana ice-cream rocks!<