I am wondering - since i am new at this - what can i not eat raw? i know that one shouldn't eat potatoes, but what else? also i love steamed green beans and stir fried asparagus but not so sure about eating them raw? any ideas anyone? thank you!!
goin raw,
joanna

There are VERY few things you cannot/should not eat raw. Even those things won't kill you....but probably just taste bad....and might make you sick. Here's the stuff my my list pulled from Wiki - which I hope is helpful (asparagus is fine...but green potato is not....or at least not very tasty! LOL:

Poisonous food plants

* Potato (Solanum tuberosum) All green parts contain the glycoalkaloid solanine - considered inedible when raw; cooked potatoes have had starches softened and rendered edible
* Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) Foliage and vines contain alkaloid poisons
* Rhubarb (Rheum rhaponticum) Leaves contain oxalic acid salts
* Cherry (Prunus cerasus), as well as other species such as peach, plum, almond and apricot (Prunus) Leaves and pits contain cyanogenic glycosides
* Pokeweed (Phytolacca sp.) Leaves, berries and roots contain phytolaccatoxin and phytolaccigenin - toxin in young leaves is reduced when boiled twice

[edit] Poisonous garden plants

* Privet (Ligustrum sp.) Possibly fatal to humans, berries contain ligustrin and syringin
* Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) Fatal to humans, contain cardiac or steroid glycosides
* Lilies Most are poisonous, especially to cats
* Yew (Taxus baccata, the "English yew" All parts of the plant, except for the fleshy red bit of the fruit, contain taxane alkaloids
* Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) All parts of the plant contain the toxic alkaloid atropine
* Oleander (Nerium oleander) All parts are toxic, containing nerioside, oleandroside, saponins, cardiac glycosides, but especially the leaves and woody stems
* Castor oil plant (Ricinus communis) Oil is purgative; seed meal separate from oil is source of the deadly toxic protein, Ricin
* Aconite (wolfsbane, monkshood) (Aconitum napellus) The poison is concentrated in the unripe seed pods and roots
* Delphinium Contains the alkaloid Delsoline

[edit] Poisonous ornamental plants

* Castorbean (Ricinus communis) Castor Oil Plant; The phytotoxin is ricin, a water soluble protein, which is concentrated in the seed. Also present are ricinine, an alkaloid, and an irritant oil.

[edit] Notes

* Poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) Notable for not being poisonous, despite persistent beliefs to the contrary

[edit] Poisonous wild plants

* Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), Poison Oak (T.diversilobum), and Poison Sumac (T.vernix) All contain a highly irritating oil known as urushiol(this is actually not a poison but an allergen)
* Deadly Nightshade/Belladonna (Atropa belladonna) All parts of the plant contain the toxic alkaloid atropine
* Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum) All parts of the plant contain the relatively simple alkaloid coniine
* Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) Green portions of the plant, unripe fruit, and especially the rhizome contain the non-alkaloidal toxin podophyllotoxin

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Thanks David, what about sweet potatoes? i like them steamed but honestly I have never tried them raw. thanks again for your help!
joanna

Joanna, look in the recipes section of this and other raw sites - tons of ideas for delish raw food!

Sure Joanna. I see no reason (other than taste) why you couldn't eat raw sweet potato! Heh..heh.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Last year I was doing some research on the website for Bastyr University and came across a place with an article of the benefits of raw potatoes for Diabetics. The bad thing was that I couldn't read the article, because you had to be a member to do so! I didn't see how to join, so I gave up. But I had been interested in the article for two reasons... 1) I am a diabetic, not controlled well and looking for alternative therapies, and 2) I grew up eating raw potatoes. As a kid, we would peal them, rinse them off, salt and eat like an apple. They are quite different from cooked, but we enjoyed them. I don't think they are harmful at all as long as they're not green.

In fact, since seeing the title of that article, I've been tempted to add some raw potato to my diet!

Maybe I'll go hunt for the article and see if I can get more info.

KathyT

Sweet potato chips are lush.. or you can just grate it and add it into your salad

Raw-k on

raw potato tasted so gross to me. that's a pretty good indication for me not to eat it.

do not eat raw sprouted kidney bean or sprouted kale seeds, there are toxic.
some people eat sprouted chickpeas and soy beans but they aren't good for you. not toxic but still unhealthy.

What is unhealthy about the sprouted chickpeas? They were one of my favorite cooked foods and was going to start sprouting them... just curious!

Try it! I was not a big fan.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

i have read over and over again that chickpeas are one of the things to not eat raw. i had some info on my old computer but it's long gone now.

try them yourself if you like. they can be used successfully in recipes but a mouthful of them on their own will give you an unmistakable taste message.

raw hummus made with sprouted sunflowers is pretty darn good anyhow

david, tomatos and cherries are poisonous? what?

veggiel0ve,

Read the post again.

i could not imagine trying to eat asparagus raw, i just could not.

is that even digestible?

i have extreme problems digesting raw broccoli, so i have to eat it steamed when i do eat broccoli.

i CRAVE raw cauliflower, and i eat raw cauliflower, and then regret it for a day afterwards, so hard to digest.

what about spinach, it tastes so good raw, but also so hard to digest.

maybe that is why i am pineapple girl, because raw pineapple does my body good.

Veggielove: Apparent the foliage contains bad compounds - you know?

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

i am very curious as to what everyone thinks about raw asparagus.. i love it stir fried in olive oil- pre-raw meal of course. not so sure about eating it raw though... any ideas anyone?

I've eaten it raw. It's good - no biggie. Just my experience.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

delicious! so crisp and juicy. you can "cook" it by marinating it in oil with lemon and spices. this works for broc and cauliflower as well. it gets softer and is of course infused with the flavour of the marinade.

now if i could only figure out a way to eat artichoke raw. it just isn't the same.

greens are easy to eat..

Asparagus and Brocolli ..also good!!

But.. not naturally drawn to them..I stick to fruits..but most things you can enjoy raw (bar those on the list!)

I knew that raw soy beans were not supposed to be consumed raw (and have been reading why cooked soy is also unhealthy)... just didn't know what was unhealthy about chickpeas. Chickpeas are one of my favorite cooked foods (definitely not good raw in any way!), was just curious about the unhealthy aspects.

I wasn't a fan of raw asparagus until I got some local stuff. Each spear is no thicker than a chopstick, so they are so tender... I'll eat half the bunch on the way home from the store.

I tried Uti's recipe for faux sticky rice (minced cauliflower and soaked chia seeds) and then rolled it into some nori rolls with the asparagus, tomatoes and sunflower sprouts...so yummy!

I mentioned once before that I eat raw asparagus from time to time. I chop them in pieces and throw them on my salad for a crunchy taste.

One saying I often use in my head "chew your food into liquid, because your stomach doesn't have teeth" That helps so much with digestion!

Somewhat new to this-I have experimented with quite a few raw recipes and have been vegetarian (mostly vegan) for more than 20 years-there are six of us to feed and I have purposed to start the transition to 100% raw alone, although my family has enjoyed most of the raw recipes. It is expensive to feed all of us if the recipe does not appeal to everyone, so I have to test them out first. On the subject of what not to eat raw, I have used soymilk for a long time-mainly the price! Tell me more about soy-looking for a less expensive alternative than making my own almond milk-I live in Wisconsin-is anybody else out there from this lovely state with a short growing season? Peg

Norman Walker in some of his books advocated both eating and juicing potatoes. I tried eating a sliver of one, but it didn't appeal to me and the juice was okay, but not necessarily outstanding.

There was a thread a while back on this subject so you could look up more on in the archives.

Wishing you vibrant health

Almost all of the plants we think of as "food" can be eaten raw, although -- as already noted above -- some may not taste good and a few may make you sick.

HOWEVER, do not make the mistake of thinking that most plants in general are edible for humans. If you were to go out into a forest or field and start randomly munching on plants, you would almost certainly be very ill and perhaps dead within the first day or two! Some plants will even burn your mouth as soon as you start to chew them, but others are slower-acting; some cause paralysis, loss of vision, etc... leading to permanent organ damage and/or death. In fact, MOST plants in nature are toxic, to humans as well as many/most animals and insects. Since plants cannot move around (run, flee) to escape from predators, toxicity (and occasionally thorns or needles or camouflage) is their main/only defence against being eaten. Certain plants use sweetness and edibility (esp. of fruits) as a means of attracting animals to eat parts of them and thus spread their seeds around, and some have defences that are toxic to insects but not to humans, but overall only a very, very small percentage of the great variety of plants found in nature are really suitable or safe for human consumption. Fortunately, we pretty well know from millenia of experience which ones are safe and nutritious, and those --including all the ones you find in food markets-- are nearly all edible in their raw state.

Hi...I am so new to raw food I don't really feel comfortable posting this...but I understand that papaya has digestive enzymes and believe they might help with poor digestion...I used to take papaya enzymes in pill form for heartburn...but have never eaten a raw papaya...possibly mangoes have the same enzymes...not sure about that though :-) Hope this helps :-)

and I love raw potatoes...we used to sneak them from our grandmother when she was preparing dinner...but we were told not to eat them raw...not because of possible toxins..but that we would get worms lol that didn't stop us eating them raw..with salt of course :-))

Things that don't taste delicious raw, unprocessed, without additives should not be eaten.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2008 09:56PM by rrraw.

I have a book that recommends juicing raw potatoes. And, coming from maine, we used to eat them all the time raw growing up. What is wrong with potatoes? (un-cooked of course)

papain, the enzyme in papaya, is not available in any other fruit. it is specific to the papaya just as bromelaine is specific to pineapple.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2008 02:24PM by coco.

newyear, you could make milk from sunflower or sesame seeds, they are both a lot cheaper than almonds. Soak the seeds first for around 8 hours before making the milk.

Rob

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