I was curious about your statement in another post about not washing greens for 4 years. I was hoping you can enlighten me on this practice. How did you decide not to wash them? I'm just curious to see what I can learn from it.

Thanks,

Mona

I probably decided on this practise because washing my food before I ate it seemed like a lot of work. And at the time I was living somewhere where we had to collect drinking water from a spring, the only running water was from the river - it didn't make sense to wash stuff in water which I wasn't sure about the quality of.

I believe that if we don't worry about this kind of thing our bodies will build up natural immunity - I also don't use soap (and haven't done for maybe 6 years) and I don't get ill.

I also don't wash conventional produce. Maybe I should, I don't know, but again, it doesn't seem to cause me any problems.

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

There is also the idea that vitamin B12 comes from bacteria in the soil, so by not washing organic produce you may get bits of soil with B12 in them...

Rob

--
Rob Hull - Funky Raw
My blog: [www.rawrob.com]

Hi Rob,

Iym also a bit of an unwasher of food. I do a lot of wild-crafting and I never wash stuuuf that I pick...or stuuuf from my own garden (unless there are huge chunks of soil!). I oftenly don't wash stuuuf I buy either butt I am slightly more concerned about that...we have no idea where that stuuuf has been! ;-P

Iym much more concerned about things they may have sprayed onto fruit and veg to protect against bugs and fungi etc. Even organic growers may spray stuuuf which, while it may be organic, may not be good for us. But I still eat organic carrots straight from the pack. And when I thin out carrot seedlings I get a fair amount of soily grittiness when I eat the thinnings. I don't get sick either. I believe my immune system adjusted long ago.

*chomp chomp*

I've been eating unwashed greens (from Whole Foods) for about three years no problem. Mainly for b12 reasons . . .

-Ryan
radicalvitality.com

i don't wash unless there are bugs. cause I am lazy.

Wow! You all are brave, or I'm just too paranoid and/or neurotic. I think I'll live on (my version of) the edge and try it out for awhile. It will save me some time and water. There's a water shortage at the moment, so hey...

xoxo,
Lita

[paintedrenderings.blogspot.com]

I don't think you can be certain that not washing your organic produce "works" unless you are periodically getting your MMA levels checked.

It probably "works" better if you are growing your own with manure and cobalt-rich soil. But I'd still not rely on it alone unless I knew for certain it was doing the trick.

Arugula, I wonder what you mean by "works" and "doing the trick". I guess you mean just not getting sick but I have a feeling there's also something else you have in mind.

I eat straight out of a garden. Often enough, right there in the garden. Squat, pick, insert, chew, swallow. I don't always look for bugs. Often but not always. There are times though when I'll notice a small worm so there must be times when I ingest worms. I wonder what all this is doing inside me. I haven't been sick but I think I've read and heard that there are things that could be going on that we aren't aware of.

Ah, yeah, Arugula, what is the MMA level you mentioned? What's this about?

I've come to a new appreciation of vegetables. Wow. There are several here that I love to just munch on. Munch munch munch. The only way I could get it fresher were to bite right into the plant. There's on that is apparently a "weed" as I have only met one other person who even knows it's edible. I'll post a picture of it someday. I'll post a few pictures because there is so much here that I would like to share. I'll do my best to make sure the pictures aren't too too big.

The garden I work on isn't organic, which I recently found out. I was told a while back that it is organic. Then I noticed a bag of fertilizer which I'm pretty sure isn't organic. Then I saw the stuff in the garden, in the lettuce bed. I live in South Korea, so the bag is written in Korean. I haven't made the effort to read it to see if it's organic. I've spoken with the lady who does most of the work in the garden but she doesn't really speak to me. Just sort of bleats things out. I don't understand most of what she says to me!! I haven't noticed any insecticide packaging. I have seen some old bottles of long ago used up herbicides. So most of the time I eat straight from the garden it's from places that I feel hasn't had anything applied at all for quite some time.

We also burn trash here. There's a spot at the temple where a couple of the ladies take garbage to burn. The wind blows the smoke into the garden. They burn plastic and who knows what. After I've been here a bit longer I'll see what I can do to change the burning and the gardening practices. There are a couple of places in the garden where the smoke probably doesn't reach.

I guess I can start up a diary today. Hmm.... I have such a difficult time with commiting myself to doing anything. Then when I do, and start something up, I nearly always abandon it after a while. Nearly everything I ever do. But I would like to share some experiences. I really like this life. Really really do.

Enough.



This way is not compatible with Zen practice. This way IS Zen practice. - Dr. Doug Graham

Nothing whatsoever should be attached to. - Buddha

TroySantos i feel foryou about the burning garbage ..i saw alot of this in nepal wheni was there ..

i saw them burning stuff that would have been easily compostable to make new soil, but there is no real information there to the people to do this

plastic water bottles are a huge plague in kathmandu and the everest region

i did show my apartment/hotel where i was living how to cut them in half and use the bottles as mini greenhouses to start little plants

but it definitely a huge problem there

its realy sad too because coca-cola is the bigges bottlewater producer/supplier in the nepal area and htey have no recycling put in place

just peeeeeeeeeses me off

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

[Arugula, I wonder what you mean by "works" and "doing the trick". I guess you mean just not getting sick but I have a feeling there's also something else you have in mind.]

The primary reason not to wash would be to get some B12 in your body. A secondary reason would be that a little bit of dirt is probably good for the immune system.

[what is the MMA level you mentioned? ]

That's methylmalonic acid, a urine test for it is considered to be more accurate than a B12 plasma test. Elevated homocysteine is also a surrogate marker for inadequate B12 status.

Sometimes high folate intakes (as would be expected from a good raw diet with high leafy green intake) can mask a B12 deficiency and these other tests can pinpoint a problem with greater precision.

I don't think it's a good idea to wait for problems to show up, such as dizziness or an irregular gait, before taking action.

Since most people are not testing their plasma/urine they might incur some irreversible damage needlessly if they rely solely on unwashed produce.

It's easy and cheap to use reliable sources of B12 instead of testing. I use a supplement, 1/4 of a 1000 mcg tablet once a week. I also sometimes do only a cursory job of washing my produce but I at least remove the visible critters and the pollen, leaves, spanish moss, etc. that falls on it.