Do grains contain anything that fruits and vegetables do not?

I don't believe grains contain anything useful that can not be found in nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables. If you choose to, you should be able to live a happy, healthy life without any grains.

Ian.

Flax is a grain. I don't see any reason NOT to eat grains if a person feels good eating them. Naturally, a person sensitive to gluten should not eat grains containing gluten. Grains can be eaten raw sprouted.

Best wishes, -Ally



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2006 06:54PM by Ally.

Grains are inferior to fruit in that the complex carbs require the body to go through an additional process to brake them down into simple sugars. (also, from a naturalist perspective, grains are much more difficult to harvest then fruits, so probably not what nature intended as a primary food). However, I have found grains to be a good transition food if you are going raw since they are a concentrated form of carbs. If you are switching to raw and just eating fruit it can be difficult since you must eat more of the fruit to get the calories. When I first went raw I could barely eat two or three bananas. I wasn't therefore getting the calories and lost a lot of weight. I've now been substituting the grains for the fruits and upping the fruit little by little. I can now eat seven large bananas at a meal no problem, and I finish off with just a little bit of grain.

-Ryan
radicalvitality.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2006 07:23PM by ryandvan.

Actually, I like my grains. I sprout, yes really sprout, wild rice, oat berries, wheat berries, barley, etc. I maje juice from the sprouted wheat and barley. I sprout oat berries and make yummy raw breads as well as some of the tastiest breads from sprouted oats. There are many healthy, beneficial nutrients in grain that we can all benefit from. However, to cook them destroys most of the nutrients. Therefore we must only dehydrate on low settings or use our greenstar or other powerful juicers to extract the nutrients or press the grain into a dough. Mind you, we don't have to have any of these items to live but they do make our diets a bit more interesting.

Cheers,

Marcos

Go Vegan for your life, your health, the planet and, most importantly, the animals that we share this wonderful world with!

Hi ryandvan,

I was wondering if you were referring to raw sprouted grains or were you referring to cooked grains?

I agree that raw sprouted grains certainly don't have the same easily available sugar as fruits, but they possibly have the potential for contributing essential nutrients in a very easily digestible form (for most people) to a raw food vegan diet.

That said, I think it would be a lot easier for me to give up raw sprouted grains than to give up fruit (if I had to choose one over the other).

Best wishes, -Ally



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2006 10:39PM by Ally.

HI greenman,

Grains probably don't contain anything that fruits and vegetables don't contain, but grains contain many of the same nutrients in a more concentrated form.

For example, flax contains huge amounts of the omega 6 and omega 3 fats. Since such a small quantity of flax contains such a huge quantity of omegas, a person can get the omegas they need from flax by consuming only a small amount of calories from fats.

Sprouted wheat has concentrated nutrients similar to the concentrated nutrients found in nuts and seeds, but without nearly so much fat as nuts and seeds.

You can check sprouted wheat and other foods for essential nutrients by visiting www.nutritiondata.com.

Best wishes, -Ally