I've been reading the rawfoodexplained.com site.

[www.rawfoodexplained.com]

This section on herbs is interesting. How many people here believe that herbs are harmful to the body? I see where the article is coming from, but can't see how a herb that can be eaten in abundance as a mono meal (I could eat a truckload of cilantro!) can be classified as harmful?

Views appreciated, esp. from long time raw foodists!

The author's argument, which you can believe or not, is that one test to distinguish a food plant from a poisonous "herb" is whether you are able to eat large quantities of it whole and plain. He explains this most explicitly in the last question on the F.A.Q. page. If you are able to eat mono meals of cilantro, then by the author's test, cilantro should be classified as a food, not an herb. On the other hand, he describes parsley, basil, peppermint and spearmint as herbs, not foods. This makes me think that he would not agree that cilantro is a food.

Overall, I think he makes some good points about using herbal medicines carrying many of the same unfavorable effects as using conventional Western medicine. The can-I-eat-this-as-a-mono-meal test is not unreasonable (or original). In his attempt to eliminate so many plants from the human diet, it seems to me that he makes a couple of logical errors.

First, not everything which has been assigned medicinal characteristics is toxic or poisonous. As he himself pointed out, herbal medicine is not developed by rigorous scientific methods, and some of these purported medicinal properties are simply completely false.

Second, nearly every green leaf contains some level of toxin. Whether this is because the plants would like to discourage us from eating their leaves is a philosophical question. The result is that it becomes important to vary the types of green leaves in our diet to avoid building excesses of any one toxin. If we completely eliminate plants from our diets which are found to contain toxins we may not be able to continue eating any amount of greens at all.

I like what Hippocrates said many years ago "Let food be your medicine and your medicine food". Raw foods heal.

Quote

I see where the article is coming from, but can't see how a herb that can be eaten in abundance as a mono meal (I could eat a truckload of cilantro!) can be classified as harmful?

You could eat a truckload of anything(herbs, as well as pizzas, fast food, sweets etc.) as long as you add really essential foods to your diet but

would you be able to sustain yourself and thrive if you would eat only once per day and only mono meals of herbs?

I am not sure whether we should eat herbs or not but personally I avoid them completely. As long as they don't appeal to my senses I can't be bothered.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2008 03:10PM by Walkern.

my understanding is that herbs are poisons... anything that makes the body generate stomach acid hurts it. So herbs should only be used with specific intent... IE cleansing, circulation... but if you dont have problems with these then dont eat them.

" anything that makes the body generate stomach acid hurts it"

how can this be true? the stomach must make acid to digest anything, no? pretty sure...


hey, i can't eat more than one apple at a time without feeling icky, i'm not one of those 15 oranges for lunch people, and i can't eat more than a small handful of mint of basil leaves either. does this mean i shouldn't eat them at all? i don't think so. they taste way delicious to me, i think they're great.

I was wondering... do certain herbs create mucous?

coco -

when foods are properly combined the digestion system does not have to work nearly as hard at digesting foods. Something like a ripe apple, takes maybe a half hour to digest... and practically digests itself. This is why its so important to chew your foods thoroughly... and combine them properly. You want to make it as easy on digestion as possible.

Something like steak on the other hand can take hours. Because the stomach has to generate acid and enzymes to break it down. And the body doesnt necessarily break all of it down. That is how we get alot of parasites in the body, because it goes putrid in the bowels. Now add some starch like a baked potato... bacon bits, sour cream, butter, and garlic bread... and we have improperly combined, all cooked foods... this is brutal. The digestive system has to work way harder to create enzymes to digest this, plus way more acid. Not to mention the water leaving the body to help digest the foods.

Now the acids that are generated by the stomach eventually build up in the body. This leads to poor health for many reasons, and is the cause of ageing. Aswell as stoping drainage and whatnot. This is why fasting works so well to heal... it gives the body a chance to remove all the excess acids... and helps it to clean up the bowels and whatnot.

Now many herbs can generate stomach acid. IE Cayenne... this is a great herb to detox, and build circulation.... but generates alot of stomach acid. Olive leaf is a great herb too.. and is much milder on the digestion than cayenne. But it also requires some stomach acid to be generated.

This is why the best diet, is a mono-diet, of living foods, and only one meal a day. It lets the body rest for 18 hours to purge what it doesnt need. And it is very possible to do.

oh, i am more than passingly familiar with food combining, believe me. my mom has had a chart on the fridge since we were kids, not that i follow it all the time though.
i can understand the idea that heavy and/or poorly combined foods take more energy to digest but herbs? these can be mono eaten just fine. i myself could not make a meal of them but neither could i make a meal, especially my only meal of the day, of anything else. i can't eat 17 apples or 10 oranges or 4 bunches of celery at a time without a definate taste change indicating that my body has had enough. a nutritional profile of such a meal is inadequate as well so far as i can tell. i don't think this is healthy though everyone is welcome to try it as they see fit. it just isn't for me. i'm with the boutenkos, i think a wide variety of green foods daily, including whatever herbs i desire, is the way to go.

Although worthy of a post all it's own....I tend to agree with some of the above great posts, i.e., if a food is good enough to eat JUST that food for three days.....and you feel great.....then it is probably a great food for you. The mixing of foods tends to shield and obscure the true energy of that particular food....and its reaction to our system.

In my own experience: Eat watermelon for 3 days....no problem. Eat Canteloupe for 3 days...no problem. Eat Apples for three days...no problem. Eat garlic for 3 days = problem. Eat onions for 3 days = problem. I've never tried this with various herbs....but by all means try it and let me know!

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

follow your instincts...

I mean if your eating raw, and your instincts tell you to eat nuts, veggies, and herbs then go with it. There is probably a reason for it. And I agree with DZM aswell... if foods arent making you sick.. and you crave them, then go with it. But if a person is eating herbs just because they think they are good for them... then I think there is a problem. Because that is just forcing the body to do stuff.

Squirrels... they eat stashed nuts in spring... then they eat fruits and berries, greens and bugs in the summer... and then they eat nuts again and hibernate during the winter. So a person could cycle thier diet with the seasons aswell.

I also dont believe herbs create mucus... I mean if they disturb the bowels, I am sure the body may generate mucus to protect itself.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2008 10:22PM by Context.

If there's one thing I learned studying Western herbs by Traditional Chinese Medicine, American Indian herbal, and Western herbal traditions its that all plant life are herbs.

If anyone wants to get scientific, take some course work in Biochemistry. All plant life consists of chemical constituents. There's no fruit, vegetable, grain, seed, root, or bark out there that isn't going to influence one's homeostasis in some way or another.

Context Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> my understanding is that herbs are poisons...
> anything that makes the body generate stomach acid
> hurts it. So herbs should only be used with
> specific intent... IE cleansing, circulation...
> but if you dont have problems with these then dont
> eat them.

"anything that makes the body generate stomach acid hurts it"

Im sorry but this sounds fairly ridiculous to me.

My taste for certain fresh herbs has been diminishing. Oregano tastes like medicine. I ruined a giant bowl of zughetti that way.

But I wonder if I'll ever get sick of basil...?

I 110% lost my tolerance for cayenne, despite that I love the taste.

Workoutman- You believe that acid generation in the stomach is a healthy thing?

What do you think is easier on the body... eating foods that digest themselves in the body, or eating foods where the body has to supply acid, enzymes, and other materials digest them?

Context - Most people suffer from lack of acid in the stomach, not excess. If you don't have a sufficiently acidic stomach even raw foods will not be fully digested. Food will sit longer in the stomach, creating the potential for fermentation and a wide variety of stomach ailments. Stomach acid is also one of our body's major defenses against dangerous microorganisms and parasites in our food. Some people recommend not drinking water with meals at the risk of temporarily diluting your stomach acid just as you need to for digestion. This makes some sense to me, though I still sometimes drink water with meals.

foods do NOT digest themselves. the stomach is an acidic environment, stomach acid is created to digest all foods, enzymes from the body are needed for the same. the enzymes in foods don't digest them for you. this is a pretty silly arguement.


i don't eat any cayenne either but i have never enjoyed spicy foods. i do love basil, i could easily have a small bowl full of just that but i consider that more a green leaf than anything else, same with dill. oregano is not a pleasant flavour on it's own, too acrid or something. i like plucking sorrel from the lawn, i enjoy the lemon balm that grows wild at the cottage but only a leaf or two and that's enough.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2008 01:08PM by coco.

Context Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Workoutman- You believe that acid generation in
> the stomach is a healthy thing?
>
> What do you think is easier on the body... eating
> foods that digest themselves in the body, or
> eating foods where the body has to supply acid,
> enzymes, and other materials digest them?

The stomach is suposed to have acid in it. It is normal. However some may suffer from too much acid or a lack of acid. I agree with the above two posts.

The acid in your stomach will adjust to your diet if your diet is stable. If you eat alot of pizza youll have strong acid, if you only eat melons youll have weak acid. (Im not neccesarrily saying this is good, all Im saying is the body does what it has too. And when its raw, it ONLY does what it has to.)

I agree with David's perspective of what makes a great food.

So for those of you trying to live on raw starch for example, could you live on your raw starchy foods, eating them alone, with no external flavorings and no other foods, and be happy with the experience of eating those foods, as well as how you feel and your energy levels?

One thing about external flavorings like herbs, spices, and condiments. With enough external flavoring, you could make sawdust or cardboard taste good and be palatable. What these flavorings do is take away your body's ability to tell if a food is good for you, as well as take away the body's natural ability to tell you when you've eaten enough of said food. By eating a food alone, without additives, you get back these two important feedback mechanism from your food.

Also, if you can't easily live on a food for 3 days, and in fact you don't have a lot of energy, or your don't feel good eating a stomach full of that food, it may there that there are some toxins in that food that make for extra work that your body needs to do to eliminate those toxins. For people who are trying to heal themselves of some sickness (or just the effects of the SAD lifestyle), every little bit of extra work you give your body takes away from the energy that could be going towards your healing and detoxification.

I never said anything about the stomach not having acid in it. I was talking about the stomach GENERATING acid. Many things in the body are cycled.... we know that protein is one of them. BILE is another... and so is the ACID in the stomach.

Quote

Posted by: Bryan (IP Logged)
Date: April 21, 2008 10:30AM

What these flavorings do is take away your body's ability to tell if a food is good for you, as well as take away the body's natural ability to tell you when you've eaten enough of said food. By eating a food alone, without additives, you get back these two important feedback mechanism from your food.

I have found this to be one of the most helpful tools in my raw journey. By eliminating the confusion of mixed foods my body signals come through loud and clear without static. Simple raw eating results in static free body signals.

but i couldn't eat just apples for three days. i couldn't eat only apples for even one day, i don't know how anyone does that. after one or two or anything i get a taste change indicator that says "enough". this doesn't happen to you?

I hear you coco. I'm sure there is SOME food that is very appealing to you....and you could see yourself eating just that food...if you had to....and it would not be unpleasant. Other foods....heh..heh...don't quite fit the bill. Anyway...the former are the foods that are right for YOU.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

i understand that herbs are medicinal, so eating a lot of a herb could have harmful effects on the body. eg you can certainly 'overdose' on a herb tea (i know teas aren't raw)

sorry... I didnt really have time to get back to this fully.


Everything in the body is cycled. Like I said earlier... the protein, the bile, the acid... everything. The reason we we eat food is for energy. That is the only reason... there is not one single cell in our bodies that is made up of the food we eat.

Most fruit is a perfectly balanced food for the human body. It contains the water, the enzymes, the acids, the minerals, the sun, and life. These foods give us everything we need and more. As a ripe fruit like a kiwi passes through the body... it does digest itself to a certain extent. It doesnt take water from the body because it supplies it, it doesnt require enzymes from the body because it supplies them, and it doesnt back up the body. And as the fruit passes through the bowels, all the bile... all the stomach acid... all of what it generated earlier gets returned to back where it comes from.

This is why its important to have good lymph, clean bowels, and blood circulation. When the body has to start generating extra bile, extra lymph, extra acid, extra extra extra... and then start expelling it from the body... then problems begin. The circulation and drainage slows, fluids back up and build in the body, and you see deterioration in all areas. Some areas get irritated and try to protect themselves with mucus... you see the deterioration of bones and joints as the body digests them to maintain the 7.364 blood pH. You see organs like the pancreas, liver, heart, gallbladder, and bowels degenerate as they cannot compensate for what is eaten... This only happens when we eat things that are unbalanced, and require energy from the body to digest them.

Herbs are not balanced for digestion... nor are many foods. Because they take from the body to digest them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2008 12:00PM by Context.

P.S.

Here is a link I googled in about 5 seconds regarding digestion and ENZYMES, in living foods. And yes the enzymes help with digestion... we just need to look to the papaya and pineapple to see this.

[www.healthguidance.org]

"ost raw food, like our bodies, is very perishable. When raw foods are exposed to temperatures above 116 degrees, they start to rapidly break down, just as our bodies would if we had a fever that high. One of the constituents of foods which can break down are enzymes. Enzymes help us digest our food. Enzymes are proteins though, and they have a very specific 3-dimensional structure in space. Once they are heated much above 118 degrees, this structure can change.

Once enzymes are exposed to heat, they are no longer able to provide the function for which they were designed. Cooked foods contribute to chronic illness, because their enzyme content is damaged and thus requires us to make our own enzymes to process the food. The digestion of cooked food uses valuable metabolic enzymes in order to help digest your food. Digestion of cooked food demands much more energy than the digestion of raw food. In general, raw food is much more easily digested that it passes through the digestive tract in 1/2 to 1/3 of the time it takes for cooked food.

Eating enzyme-dead foods places a burden on your pancreas and other organs and overworks them, which eventually exhausts these organs. Many people gradually impair their pancreas and progressively lose the ability to digest their food after a lifetime of ingesting processed foods.

Lack of digestive enzymes can be a factor in food allergies. Symptoms of digestive enzymes depletion are bloating, belching, gas, bowel disorders, abdominal cramping, heartburn and food allergies.

Digestive enzymes are proteins specially tailored to break down foods into nutrients that your body can then readily digest. The human body produces some 22 different digestive enzymes. Many more are found in the fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, and other foods.

When you eat a meal, digestive enzymes that are released from your salivary glands, stomach, and small intestine immediately get to work to speed up the digestive process. Each enzyme acts on a specific type of food.

Bromelain

Derived from the stems of pineapple, it is known for its healing and anti-inflammatory properties. This natural digestive enzyme may also be helpful as a diet aid. Pineapples have had a long tradition as a medicinal plant among the natives of South and Central America.

DGL (Deglycyrrhizinated Licorice Root)

A natural antacid, where the glycirrhizinic acid component of the root has been removed. DGL may stimulate our bodies defense mechanisms resulting in improved quality of mucous, lengthening of intestinal cell life and enhanced microcirculation in the gastrointestinal lining.

Papaya

A tropical fruit containing active enzymes that help improve digestive and metabolic functions. Derived from the fruit, inner bark and stems, Papaya Enzymes contain a high concentration of papain, a protein-digesting enzyme that quickly metabolizes the protein in foods. "

enzymes in food have a job to do and it isn't to help humans with thier digestion. i can google a site to find any and everything written under teh sun, that doesn't make it true.
in the case of papaya and pineapple, these are specifics that are not common to all foods and as such those extracts can be treated as medicine, much like herbs used in a medicinal context.
where is the science behind this claim that the enzymes in food aid with digestion? the last research i came across (a couple of years ago now) proved that this is not so.

Stomach acid is neutralized as it does its job, and must be constantly replenished. HCl breaks down food through chemical reactions, after these reactions the HCl no longer exists in that form. There is simply no way a molecule of HCl can be "used" twice. It must be rebuilt, or replaced. I don't know whether the new HCl is build from the same atoms as the first, and it really doesn't matter. New stomach acid must constantly be created unless we just aren't eating.

[video.about.com] - a cute video on enzymes and digestion

Just google these two words... enzymes digestion for the literally thousands of pages that come up regarding how enzymes break down food. How the foods we eat contain them, and how the body produces them aswell.

Not to mention the raw food prep books I have at home, or any of the health books I have read.

Here is one study, and pages with referrences to studies, I am not going to take the time to do a full scale investigation to prove something to you coco. Your only going to believe what you want to .

[heartspring.net]
[www.puritan.com]
[www.rawtimes.com]

frances -

I could be wrong, but its my knowledge that the body recycles everything. It is extremely intelligent, and spends only exactly what it needs to. I dont know the exact processes, I do not claim to... but I know it will take back what ever it needs during digestion, and re-use it when possible.

So yes... if the acid in the stomach gets used up its gone, it has lost its charge. Just like the bile. But what ever is left over, not used, will get recycled back into the body. The exact process... I do not know.

But take a really acidic fruit... like a lemon. I doubt the stomach is going to start producing loads of acid and enzymes to digest a lemon. Because its all already there, because the lemon is balanced.

All I am trying to say is that the body will only compensate when it has to... and that if it has to always compensate... because its not getting balanced foods... it will lead to an imbalance in the body. You are what you eat.