Green For Life book review

[Yoda]

I've just skimmed it, but her point is that our closest animal relatives, Chimps, have approximately a 50% fruit diet, 40%greens, and 10% misc (grubs, insects, seeds, small monkeys, etc).

 

Not much in terms of vegetables.

 

She makes a good point that fruit, veggies, and greens need to be separated into three camps and that most people including raw folks, don't get enough greens.

 

She blends up bananas and very large quantities of spinach. That's the key to good health. Try it for a couple of weeks and your taste sensibilities start to transform to really love greens with very little dressing. Soon, you'll find yourself eating big piles of spinach all the time.

 

She claims that these green smoothies will cure many a malady and transform your life.

 

So copy the monkeys and you'll be swinging with happiness and vitality.

 

From my very limited experience on this subject, I think she might have some good points here. My experience of eating spinach salads is becoming an increasingly sensuous experience as I get used to greenery--so she could be right about that. Sounds in line with what Max says.

 

-Yoda

[neimad]

bananas and spinach.....

 

hmmm i think even my measly blender could handle that.

 

shame that bananas are in short supply here due to the hurricane knocking out the banana growing territory. i can get a great source of spinach though.

 

it sounds reasonable to me though..... but wintertime doesn't feel like fruit eating time to me.

 

i have greens in my breakfast soup, with some root vegetables.

 

what about the protein content? people always speak about needing a lot of protein.

[sean]

I made a shake the other day that had spinach, broccoli, kale and bok choy in it (also strawberry and blackbery, lycii, schizandra and raw honey) and I drank it really fast and had an internal orgasm that buckled me over. Seriously. It was wild.

 

Sean

[Lozen]

what about the protein content? people always speak about needing a lot of protein.

 

Protein powder?

[Cameron]

I have eaten a spinach salad for luch for last few days and the difference in my energy during the day is very noticable. Also, colors are more vivid and alive.

 

I am seriously debating buying the blend tec right now..

[Lozen]

I ate a spinach salad this morning, with some hummus and ww pita bread, and some fruit blended with some protein powder, and I was still hungry, and I had a sweet potato salad, and an apple, and an orange, and Blue Machine juice, and ww pasta with peanuts and lime juice, and I'm still SO hungry ALL the time. Veg thing is not for me.

 

Does that make me an 8?

[sean]

I ate a spinach salad this morning, with some hummus and ww pita bread, and some fruit blended with some protein powder, and I was still hungry, and I had a sweet potato salad, and an apple, and an orange, and Blue Machine juice, and ww pasta with peanuts and lime juice, and I'm still SO hungry ALL the time. Veg thing is not for me.

 

Does that make me an 8?

No, the little angry face does.

[Lozen]

No, the little angry face does.

 

 

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?act=At...type=post&id=85

Edited May 24, 2006 by Lozen

[mYTHmAKER]

 

what about the protein content? people always speak about needing a lot of protein.

 

 

3-4 ounces a day is sufficient.

the daily amount of protein recommended by the gov is way to high,

I think the amount recommended in other countries is less.

That's concentrated protein.

Look at food tables most everything has some protein.

[Lozen]

If I'm not eating at least 9 ounces of protein a day, I'm not happy.

[mYTHmAKER]

I've just skimmed it, but her point is that our closest animal relatives, Chimps, have approximately a 50% fruit diet, 40%greens, and 10% misc (grubs, insects, seeds, small monkeys, etc).

 

Not much in terms of vegetables.

 

She makes a good point that fruit, veggies, and greens need to be separated into three camps and that most people including raw folks, don't get enough greens.

She blends up bananas and very large quantities of spinach. That's the key to good health. Try it for a couple of weeks and your taste sensibilities start to transform to really love greens with very little dressing. Soon, you'll find yourself eating big piles of spinach all the time.

She claims that these green smoothies will cure many a malady and transform your life.

So copy the monkeys and you'll be swinging with happiness and vitality.

 

-Yoda

 

Don't forget romain lettuce and celery.

Eat whole raw salads don't blend everything.

There's an add in a magazine with an ape endorsing the blender he uses

[Yoda]

good point on the blenders: you don't need anything special to blend bananas and spinach.

 

one thing the book says is that she lost jaw strength from just living on smoothies. Now she does daily jaw exercises and it's all good. I think smoothies are great, but let's not overdo the whole 'breaking cell walls' schtick and let's chew sometimes. Most chimps don't have blenders, after all... except for those dirty damn apes, but that's another can of worms altogether.

 

Haven't had any internal orgasms yet. Were you wearing your aneros? (hey, that's an idea!)

 

There's more protein per calorie in greens than in many cuts of beef, btw. I read that in Eat to Live and verified it. You have to eat *a lot* of greens like the author suggests, though.

 

-Yoda

[Smile]

I made a shake the other day that had spinach, broccoli, kale and bok choy in it (also strawberry and blackbery, lycii, schizandra and raw honey) and I drank it really fast and had an internal orgasm that buckled me over. Seriously. It was wild.

Nice, lol

 

 

There's more protein per calorie in greens than in many cuts of beef, btw. I read that in Eat to Live and verified it. You have to eat *a lot* of greens like the author suggests, though.

The quality of protein also counts. You think you get 8 ozs of protein a day but how much of it is actually digested and absorbed into your body? Spinach has the same amount of protein as mother's milk- about 2%. If the babies only use 2% when they grow the most, why would you think you need more then that?

 

You need to eat a lot of vegies though to keep up with monkeys...

[neimad]

i got a couple of organic bananas at home...

 

i had my lunch already tomorrow but tomorrow for lunch i think i'll blend up a couple with some spinach and some parsley.... and perhaps add a little raw buttermilk for the liquid to make it smoother?

 

this idea of a diet resonates well with me.... but i don't think i could hold to it too well at the moment, so in the meantime i am just gonna concentrate on uptaking my level of greens.

 

already today had some buk choy, chinese broccoli, dutch carrots (+the leaves) for brekkie, a stick of celery dipped in tahini for lunch, and in addition to some left over cous cous i had a bowl of salad and a huge handful of alfalfa sprouts (i think they are awesome additions to the diet... alfalfa contain just about every vitamin possible in them) and chopped parsley.

 

 

greens rule.

 

however as per the fruit, winter time in a temperate climate makes me not want to eat fruit. organges do no good for me, and i don't like uncooked apples or pears (too cold)..... however tropical climate, give me lots of papaya, mangoes, mangosteen, starfruit, lychees, pineapple, bananas... yeah! (+ coconuts, oh yeah!)

so hanging out to go back to thailand and gorge myself on delicious fruit.

[Yoda]

So just finished the book. The author is the mother in rawfamily.com and she got interested in greens after making her family go raw. At first they had many great gains in health, but then the gains began to disappear. Presumably, the detox benefits had run their course and now they were confronting nutritional deficiencies that seem to be common to many extreme raw diets.

 

So, she researched the hell out of Chimps... read all the Goodall stuff, visited zoos and grilled the chimp keepers with questions, etc to get to an understanding of the importance of eating 1-2 lbs of greens a day. (!) I found her chimp research to be thorough and that aspect of her message to be very compelling.

 

Her actual smoothie recipes don't seem to add up to 1-2lbs a day, except for one of them. Maybe the recipes are to just get the ball rolling.

 

She does say that simply drinking one green smoothie a day will naturally entice one to go raw over time.

 

Many rawists back off the 100% raw thing after experiencing shortcomings of the diet. Perhaps if they upped their green intake to chimp level, they wouldn't have to back off?

 

Another interesting point: when they were raw but not green, the kids complained of having sensitive teeth. That's something that I'm bumping into even in my limited experience of eating raw and even following Max's recommendation of rinsing the teeth with salt water after eating. She says upping the greens solved it. I'll check it out.

 

She sponsored a 30 day green smoothie pilot study with volunteers and had good results.

 

She said that eating greens increases stomach acidity and lowers heartburn and that stomach acidity is a great determination of vitality. She says that when she was raw/not green she would eat lots of beets and her urine would turn red. She says that's a sign of low stomach acidity. Now that she's green, she can eat beets without her urine changing color.

 

She says that chimps eat a lot of different greens, so she advocates the same including many common weeds. She points out that carrot and beet greens are more nutritious than the roots. If you have to throw something out... toss the carrots into the garbage!

 

Her whole jaw exercise thing is weird. I'm with Mythmaker on this one... use the blender for convenience, but don't live off it.

 

The many testimonials were interesting to read as well.

 

She recommends buying litmus paper to track the ph of your saliva. She says that ph is a fantastic indicator of health and finds it very strange that the medical community doesn't use this easy test.

 

-Yoda

[Smile]

well, I got inspired by this thread, and decided to make a green smoothie... so I went and bought some baby-leaf organic spinach (really expensive - almost $5 for a bag that would last for 3 smoothies), a bag of mixed sprouts (mung bean, green and brown lentil, aduki bean and chickpea) some corriander and parsley - and some other green stuff that I'm not sure what it is ... got it all in the blender along with a couple of kiwis, cider vinegar, garlic, olive oil, honey, a bit of miso and apple juice...

Wow, you are mixing waaaaaaaayyy too much stuff. Don't put more then just a few ingredients- preferably one kind of fruit and one kind of vegetable. If you make a soup like in your case, ease up on garlic and olive oil. They will make your food stay in your stomach for a while.

 

i follow this rule- if it takes me more then 5 minutes to make a smoothie from start to finish, i'm doing something wrong.

 

So, she researched the hell out of Chimps... read all the Goodall stuff, visited zoos and grilled the chimp keepers with questions, etc to get to an understanding of the importance of eating 1-2 lbs of greens a day. (!) I found her chimp research to be thorough and that aspect of her message to be very compelling.

I believe chimps eat insects and whatever proteins they can get when they are in the natural habitat. Nuts are only in certain times of the year as well. If you follow an active lifestyle like MA training, I would recommend drinking a few raw organic eggs every day or every other day.

[thelerner]

When I'm in China town I'll always get an avocado shake. So smooth and creamy. I meant to get some baby spinach and try the banana/spinach mix, haven't yet. I suspect some avocado makes veggie smoothies go down uh smoother and tastier.

 

Michael

[thelerner]

That oxy stuff is a bit expensive at $42 and change. I did a cleanse and used generic psycillium seed capsules for about $5 bucks. I did take a pill or two of Fiber smart caps(maybe 8 or 9 bucks) from nenew life w/ them. So I'd take 3 or 4 Wal mucil and 2 or 3 Fiber smarts each day for 4 days. I ate a little better then normal and drank extra water. And shit long bricks. Toilet paper use was nearly null.

 

Hopefully it did its job.

 

I don't know if its as effective but I prefer swallowing pills to the noxious taste of fiber drinks. The worst was putting in clay, what a ghastly flavor that had, even w/ fresh lemon and maple syrup. I'm sure charcoal can't taste as bad.

 

You know what else had a strong cleansing effect. There was a post on Yogic water cleansing. You'd drink 1 1/2 quarts of luke warm clean water first thing in the morning. Within half an hour you needed some heavy time in the washroom. Swamis swore by it as a cure all.

 

I tried it. It was extreme but nice. I think a couple of guys here did it. I only did it for 2 or 3 days, it did seem like a valuable tool.

 

Michael

[mYTHmAKER]

`One table spoon of flax seeds ground fresh in a moulinex coffee grinder

and sprinkled over a fruit salad is a good source of fiber.

It might thicken up too much in a blended drink - haven't tried it.

[mYTHmAKER]

yeah I agree - the price is a little prohibitive... but I got a good deal with a UK distributor, and it does contain 120 capsules - which apparently do fine for a full-on cleanse and then a month or two of maintenance.

 

I've done the psylum, clay and colonics thing in thailand and it helped for a short amount of time, but things went back to the way they were after a few weeks... which means my belly swells after eating, and I have a bowel movement every other day! Apparently the oxy stuff clears your small intestine which the colonics dont reach... so hopefully combining psylum and activated charcoal will help to clear the system out even more thoroughly, than with oxy alone.

 

I've heard about the yogic water cleanse too - but I was told that you drink warm (body temperature) salty water (apparently they put just enough salt to make it similar to the blood!?) the idea is to drink ridiculous amounts of the mixture and then vomit and crap it out (usually simultaneously )... maybe one day I'll try it - but for now it's a little extreme!

 

When I changed my eating habits i went from one bowel movement every other day to

one to two per day sometimes more.

Processed devitalized foods are one cause. Another would acid binding foods.

A good way to deal with your belly swelling after you eat would be for you to try a water fast

for one or two days - nothing but water and lots of it. This will give your stomach a chance to rest

and heal itself.

When you reintroduce food don't overeat and be careful not to eat too many types of food at one time

[Cameron]

water therapy, yeah another good one. I am finding with what I am doing now many glasses of water throughout the day is better but might try it out again.

 

All sorts of info in that at http://sakthifoundation.org/

[GrandTrinity]

Hmm i might have to try the banana spinach, sounds funny! Anyone here eat wheatgrass tablets?

[neimad]

yeah I agree - the price is a little prohibitive... but I got a good deal with a UK distributor, and it does contain 120 capsules - which apparently do fine for a full-on cleanse and then a month or two of maintenance.

 

 

don't worry about the price too much (what good is money if it isn't used for your own self-benift anyway?). it's good stuff and worth it.

 

if your diet is very clean while taking it, you'll get a lot of cleansing happening.... however important is to keep your diet clean afterwards too.

 

 

but a big point i need to make here is:

it takes 7 years to regenerate the body. so no matter how hard you cleanse, how much good stuff you take.... be prepared to wait 7 years of being very strict and disciplined with a clean diet for the effects to truly take place!!!

 

we can help it along with detoxes, fasts, etc... but i'm fully ready and aware that it wont be for another 5 or so years that i am truly going to recover from my years of refined wheat, processed meat and sugar diet i lived on for more than 8 years. and for that period (and the rest of my life, of course) i have to be ever vigilant, determined and disciplined.

the daily diet is where the magic really happens, not in the occassional smatterings of intense detoxification processes.

 

thats the way it is, there aint no magic pill or smoothie blend! (although oxy-powder comes pretty close... just wait freeform, it's a pretty amazing product and worth its price).