On a scale of 1-10, how damaging is blending to our food? I ask because a friend attented Brian Clements lecture here in Montreal and asked him that question. His answer was that due to oxidation caused by the blades, it renders the food pretty useless. He said the better the blender the more damage it causes. This has me concerned. What are your thoughts on this?

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Proverbs 15:17 (New International Version) "Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred."

sounds like a pretty extreme thing to worry about(makes sense though)...maybe that's just cause I love blending everthing.

I hear you. And I agree that if you are eating healthy...I wouldn't worry too much about this. But to answer your question: A bit. If you eat/drink the foods you are chopping in a bazillion bits right away.....then there is not much harm done (opinion). ANY processing is going to be less vital than then fresh stuff you bought (opinion). And ANY stuff you grew or picked yourself is probably going to be better than stuff you bought in a store (opinion).

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Ive been thinking about this lately also:

Some guy created a webpage on this topic here: [timtyler.org]

Here's what i think:

- filling the blender more fully causes less bubbling and oxidation to occur (at least with my blender).

- blend for as short a time as necessary.

- using frozen fruits or cold water will help minimize oxidation (at the expense of consuming a food that is not at optimal digestive temperature).

- adding high-antioxidant foods such as pollen, wild blueberries and other berries will help to minimize oxidation.

- dont put blended foods in the fridge, just blend and start consuming immediately.

- everything is relative. even the simple act of chewing will cause some oxidation prior to swallowing.

From [calorierestriction.org] comes this finding: "[Brassica] vegetables shredded finely showed a marked decline of glucosinolate level with post-shredding dwell time - up to 75% over 6h. Glucosinolate losses were detected partly as isothiocyanates." Take-home message, as mentioned already, just be sure to consume your blended concoction post-haste.

-Erin
Raw Done Light
dogma-free RAW
Gazpacho For The Soul

I find that a bit confusing, Brian Clement saying that blending renders the food useless yet he worked with Ann Wigmore when she ran the Boston Hippocrates centre,which he took over after her death and then moved to Florida. And Ann Wigmore mostly lived on her famous (blended) green soup.

Anyway, the way I feel about blending foods is that you lose a bit of nutrition through oxidation but you gain by making the food more easily digestible, like baby food.

Does anyone know if Brian Clement or anyone else did any research on blended foods, like measuring it for nutrients after blending?

Francis

I agree, I wouldn't sweat the nutrient loss

for me, I don't see any advantages of blending. I don't think it makes food more digestable, chewing food accordingly/ + mono will always make it more easily digested (as well as less energy devoted to digestion) and nutrients more assimilatible. baby food is pureed because thye don't have teeth i would think.

I'm confused as well this is Clement's position, although he seems to be quite the crusader these days of dividing practices into good and evils.

maybe he was trying to make an argument against those who believe blending is somehow superior to juicing because it contains the 'nutrient' of fiber. when in fact there is no nutrient loss in jucing, its the lack of fiber which makes juicing work. On that I would agree with him, juicing is an altogher seperate, IMO superior tool for absorbing nutients while allowing the body to rest.

I think using a blender to make a low-fat dressing would be a great practice. I prefer eating my greens plain and eating my fat seperate at the end..just me

Brian came to SD recently and he did say that he thinks blending makes food useless..yet he also talked about a few blended items..and his receipe book he said to follow and it hleps is all about blending so i don't know ..i think if he really truly felt that way he wouldn't be promoting that book...because he would want to be differenta nd sell a book that goes against all the others on the market...but i don't know just my opinion...i think he might of meant it in a certain context..not for all blended ....
love earthangel
xoxoxoxoxoxox

Much peace and love!!!
EarthAngel
Xoxo

"What's worse than a raw food guru?"

"I don't know. What?"

"An INCONSISTENT raw food guru."

-Erin
Raw Done Light
dogma-free RAW
Gazpacho For The Soul

> I agree, I wouldn't sweat the nutrient loss
> for me, I don't see any advantages of blending. I
> don't think it makes food more digestable, chewing
> food accordingly/ + mono will always make it more
> easily digested (as well as less energy devoted to
> digestion) and nutrients more assimilatible. baby
> food is pureed because thye don't have teeth i
> would think.

one advantage of blending is that the body gets the whole food.
then the body determines what it assimilates and what it ejects.
chewing is not always better and juicing is not necessarily better. it depends on whether one has problems with ones teeth, for example. and if we are talking about vegetables, i suspect that blending may release more of the food value compared to chewing. with fruits certainly i would think chewing is better.

juicing vs blending:

i know there is an assumption that juicing makes nutrients more assimilable.
but there are several factors to consider.

1. amount of food value released by juicing may be higher due to the method
except that there are clearly many nutrients in the pulp - it is not just non-nutritive fiber.

2. assimilation is impacted by the state of the ingested food. the higher rate of speed that something passes through a "porous tube", the LESS is absorbed. it may be that juicing allows for Less assimilation, or it may be equal to blending, or it may be more. this is not a foregone conclusion. but i would think that it would pass through faster, hence potentially be absorbed less. nobody really knows, and i have not found any studies.

3. oxidation - i have not seen any comparisons, but it is a factor.

>when in fact there is no nutrient loss in
> jucing

there are always nutrients in the pulp, unless you pass it through several times, or you have the best juicer on the planet, or both.

That's funny Erin

I agree with you Anaken that baby food is pureed because babies don't have teeth. I think blended food is helpful for adults though because most of us and especially once we get older, have compromised digestive systems from years of eating cooked food and when we first start eating raw our bodies have trouble digesting all the roughage in raw foods. A lot of people also have problems with their teeth and have weak jaws from eating cooked food and are just not capable any more of chewing their food as they should. And in the case of greens, most people probably don't take the time needed to chew them long enough.

Victoria Boutenko mentions the advantage of green smoothies for building up hydrogloric acids in the stomach.

At the moment I believe that when we first start eating raw we need to rebuild our bodies by flushing it with minerals from greens without taxing our teeth and digestive organs too much. This can be done with juices and blended food. Once the body has been remineralized, this kind of food becomes less important. Although Ann Wigmore lived on her blended soup until she died and seemed to do really well on it.

Francis

good points both

I shouldn't have said no nutrient loss in juicing. to me what you are describing is nutrient loss in terms of volume here though..i don't think certain nutrients would cling to the pulp. To me this is kinda like saying a mango is more nutritous then an apple or a banana. But is a mango more nutritious then 3 apples or 2 bananas? these of course are hypotheticals. In the case of blending I don't think the nutrient loss would be by volume but by them being slightly altered in processing...again I don't think this is a big deal. the reason i'm not to into blending is below...

Frannie,

to me if someone had these problems I would think one would want to tax the system as little as possible yes, but by adding less bulk of fiber. if people don't take the time to chew properly..I don't think blending would be the solution...sounds more like a 'therapy' to me

I don't see how green smoothies could build acids. seems like a rather un-hygenic statement to me. seems like this could only be done by giving the body rest. but of course I havn't done any research.

To me blended foods would tax the system more because of the lack of mastication (mixing with saliva) and the speed/volume/ and COMBINATIONS of food ingested. to me this goes hand in hand with blending, however of course it doesn't have to, depending on the individual's use

my personal belief about juicing it makes nutrients directly assimilatable in the blood..bypassing digestion and allowing the body to rest compartive to eating. and that there is plenty of fiber found in a diet of primarily fruits, vegetable juices, and small quanities of greens. I've found through practice that the .75 lb dinner salad doesn't work so well, and that more fiber doesn't in any way mean better digestion or a cleaner digestive tract. just my experience.

anaken Wrote:
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> my personal belief about juicing it makes
> nutrients directly assimilatable in the
> blood..bypassing digestion and allowing the body
> to rest compartive to eating. and that there is
> plenty of fiber found in a diet of primarily
> fruits, vegetable juices, and small quanities of
> greens. I've found through practice that the .75
> lb dinner salad doesn't work so well, and that
> more fiber doesn't in any way mean better
> digestion or a cleaner digestive tract. just my
> experience.
But that is one the big problem with juicing, the body is loaded at one single time with nutrients and the organs are not prepared to receive that huge load.
A natural meal is never swallowed at once, the body takes time to chew the food, to digest and to move it slowly thru the digestive system. The organs, the liver and others are notified and prepare to receive the nutrients at a natural pace.
I do juicing but I have to admit it is not the optimal meal.

I think this subjective and only *could* present a problem in the case of fruit juices (other then orange juice) and perhaps with carrots. To me its a good thing how vegetable juice 'suprises' the body in a way.

I don't really consider juice a 'meal' (although people do live on juice for periods) and certainly agree it isn't very natural. I also agree for the most part that food should flow through the system in its most natural way, yet juicing serves a unique purpose in this regard for our imperfect scernarios oulined above.

not to bring this TOO much on a tangent...

how will anyone ever truly know.

Thank you all for your valuable input from your knowledge and experiece.

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Proverbs 15:17 (New International Version) "Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred."

Anaken wrote

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To me blended foods would tax the system more because of the lack of mastication (mixing with saliva) and the speed/volume/ and COMBINATIONS of food ingested. to me this goes hand in hand with blending, however of course it doesn't have to, depending on the individual's use

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Yes, I agree that the lack of mastication and the combination of foods would tax the system more but a person would only start feeling this once they had been eating raw for a while and had healed their digestive system to some extend. So for someone new to raw it could be beneficial and also to someone eating a lot of raw gourmet. I think it's only once you start to simplify your raw diet and maybe start eating mono meals that you would feel that blended meals would be too taxing.

francis

I thought it was the other way around. If I were new to rawfood, I would do more juicing and blending to build my system up. Usually most coming from SAD have slowed or damaged digestion so juicing and blending help because the nutrients are already broken down and will easily go to repairing the body. But once the body is healed and the digestive system is working properly we can easily move into the more natural way of eating. Blended food should not be swallowed like juice, it needs to be chewed.

I think poor combinations effect everyone equally. certain people are more sensative to the ill effects of poor combinations because there system is cleaner, yes. apple cherry mango banana pineapple kale is a better combination then SWD protein/starch or fruit/starch (pasta with sauce/ burritos etc..) of cource

what I was saying is that you would want to have less bulk if you have compromised digestion. blending usually adds more bulk then what people would normally be eating. people try to 'sneak in' more vegetables by adding them to blended things. why one sees this added fiber is benefical is beyond me...