Hi,

Here, on an electricity-less, boondock farmette in eastern Kentucky, USA, I must live on stored foodstuffs from a pantry and/or root cellar for several spring and winter months because winding, steep roadways are icily or mudishly impassible.

I'm a Natural Hygiene enthusiast, preferring home organically grown (50%), vegan seeking to boost raw food % (presently maybe 40%) component of diet. The macro and micro climate, soils, hand tool cultivation techniques, and predator/insect presence foster growing the following foods which are storable: peanut, winter squash (butternuts), green soybeans, black-eyed peas, white and sweet potatoes, and various root veggies like carrots, beets etc. Plus I add store bought organic grains and dried legumes (mostly sproutable).

The problem is this: Dr Howell, Enzyme Nutrition, has painstakingly brought to light the important nutritional truth of enzyme inhibitors built in to to seeds nuts, grains, legumes, root veggies, potatoes winter squash, etc by Mother Nature. Neutralizing those inhibitors is digestively and nutritionally important, but so is enzyme consumption. Sprouting is (except for potatoes and squash) a possible solution for me, but the expert advice from rawfooders and sproutmasters is confusing and contradictory.
Mark Braunstein, Sprout Garden, and others say "sprouting legumes only partially neutralizes inhibitors, hence peanuts, soy and other big bean sprouts still need 20min steaming. Smaller beans like mung and lentils need cooking also because of natural toxins. Rice needs cooking after sprouting and the hulled millet available in USA is usually very poor at germinating (50%)"
Ann Wigmore, The Sprouting Book, and other rawfooders ignore inhibitors and eat all bean, grain, and seed sprouts raw (except soy and peanut which she does not sprout or eat)
Steve 'Sproutman" Meyerowitz, Kitchen Garden, says all big beans like soy, mung, lentil, black-eye, and adzuki need cooking. He mentions nothing specific about inhibitors and doesn't worry about enzyme-destroying cooking requirements of grain, seed, and big bean sprouts.
Some rawfooders claim the white potato is perfectly OK eaten raw, contradicting Howell's research and other's strong opinions elsewise.
Other rawfooders, similar to Wigmore, advise me to not grow or consume dry peanuts or their sprouts, dry soybean or their sprouts, potatoes or winter squash at all, but soaked seeds and nuts are OK.

Anyone want to offer pointers/links to top-of-the-line research/books concerning the above controversies?

Tom

I heard that mungbeans and other legumes does not contain enzyme-inhibitors, tho seeds and nuts do. Tho the legumes contains "natural" toxins.

Do you refer as the "inhibitors" and the "toxins" are the same.

Do you say that mungbeans, lentils, peas etc contains enzyme-inhibitors, just as seeds does?

LOVE! // Jacob

No, natural toxins are a seperate issue from inhibitors.
Yes, Howell states that all dry beans,nuts,and seeds contain inhibitors. Soybeans are notorious for large amounts of inhibitors, known to seriously sicken cattle if one tries to feed raw soybean feed to them.

Are the inhibitors stopping the minerals AND the enzymes?

What are the inhibitors doing anyway?

Leguminous plants, such as soybeans and chickpeas, bring a large quanity of uric acid into the body. This is because they are full of purines. They are naturally alkaline, but these purines are transformed into uric acid and must be eliminated out of the body. So to my understanding, it inhibits enzymes because the body is taking it's extra enzymes to get rid of the acids. Now, to my knowledge, sprouting decreases the acidic nature of these types of foods. It is important to know what has an alkaline or acidic effect on the body to maintain a normal pH of the body. So balance is the key. Steamed potatoes are very alkalizing along with the potatoe water, also. Also to my knowledge, it is easier to digest potatoes when they are steamed, for they are predigested, just drink the water to get extra nutritional benefits.





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/2006 08:54PM by shep252.

Tom,

Are you currently eating a 100% raw diet, or do you include cooked foods in your diet? I ask because eating a raw requires a source of energy in the form of calories, and typically on raw they come from either fat or fruit.

Mother Nature manufactures inhibitors to stabilize foodstuffs so they can be stored. They do this by "locking up" the enzymes within the food, enzymes being the volatile life energy that have vulnerability to decay or deterioration. But digestion of inhibitors is not good because the body is forced to neutralize them with its own storehouse of body enzymes, making for far less efficient digestion, among other things.

I'm not aware of the inhibitor's ability to interfere with mineral absorption.

Bryan,

I am only able to eat ~50% raw because of the foods that I am able to grow here in Kentucky. Winter foods stored in the root cellar (ie Potatoes and butternut squashes, peanuts, etc) need some cooking to eliminate inhibitors.