Posts Tagged ‘raw smoothie’

Randy Does It Again

I have had various experiences with the wild plants in my yard and garden. Some of them are pleasant experiences, and some of them are not.  This story falls into the second category.

During our recent set of interviews with Health Tribe Forum, Diana was talking with Stephen Buhner, a world plant expert. He explained that THISTLES are actually quite good for your health. He also explained in the same breath, that Chickweed (or Lamb’s Quarters) is just wild spinach. 

 It happens that Chickweed and Canada thistle are some of the healthiest plants in my garden.  I like eating chick weed so was very interested in the thistle idea. I was intensely curious whether you could actually take away the prickles. I couldn’t imagine how this could happen.  Visions of millions of happy Canadians feasting on enormous salad bowls of this prickly plant filled my mind.  I wanted to ask about Canada Thistle in particular but didn’t want to interrupt. Perhaps I should have.

I had also heard that you can either cook or blend thistles.  Blending is easier so that is what I tried. I pulled out several young plants (because that is what you are supposed to do) and just threw them in water and blended.

Amazing – the prickles were gone.  I could not feel them with my fingers in the blender or the few cautious drops in my mouth.

But the SMELL! It started drifting up even when I first started blending and got even stronger as I went along. Imagine blending up someone else’s smelly socks knowing you were going to eat the mixture! How does your body feel as you imagine this?  This is how my body feels several hours after I tried this.

The taste was not AS bad. It didn’t have a lot of taste to begin with but the aftertaste closely resembles the smell. BAD!  I did not throw up but was well on my way!

OK so I’ve learned I can’t eat Canada thistle like this.  But what was Stephen talking about? I will certainly ask him and do some research but perhaps you, as a member of the Health Tribe Forum or Real Food for Life, can help me?  Please leave your comments below. (You can even comment on how dumb I have been.)

This is what the Health Tribe Forum is all about. – combining our own direct experience and inner intelligence with the knowledge gleaned by mankind over the ages and combining it with modern scientific understanding.

Questions that come up in my mind:

• Does my reaction mean Canada thistle is not good for me, ever?
• Would cooking or blending with something else balance this effect?  Maybe if the thistles were fried in butter and onions and a dash of salt!
  
• Is there some particular compound in Canada thistle which causes this kind of reaction?

What do you think?

OK, so maybe I went a little overboard with my 'Dandelion Madness', ….not with last week’s article – but with eating dandelions themselves!  It happened because I was out at the farm where the plants are so much bigger and there are SO many of them.  Instead of spending 5 minutes digging up a few young plants– I can go out with a knife and in 10 seconds gather a shopping cart of mature leaves.  After throwing a large bunch into the blender, and forgetting my article advise to just make the dandelions a small addition, I drank my supercharged mixture.

No I didn’t collapse, or even throw up. In fact I finished the whole thing.  Those last few mouthfuls were getting very very strong though. I normally clean out the last few drops from the blender (Did I mention I was thrifty?) but this time I was glad to wash it down the sink.

I wanted therefore, to EMPHASIZE the part about moderation and add a few other smoothie hints and facts.  They are as follows:

1.  Keep the taste agreeable. This is not just an obvious statement that only madmen (like myself) might ignore but touches on a safely concern that some hard core raw food enthusiasts take seriously (see Below).  If your body loses its attraction for a particular food that you have been eating a lot of,  just ease off.  You don’t know specifically what your body is telling you but it’s a good thing to follow anyway.  This is one of the main principles of regeneration – to keep in touch with your body.

2.  Apples are IN, Mangoes are OUT. This could be an entirely subjective preference but again there is some logic behind this choice.  I’ve seen many people demonstrate green smoothes with mangoes and sometime bemoaned the fact that its hard to find good mangoes in Canada.  Recently the mango season was ON in Edmonton so I got a chance to try out some really good ones but they just don’t work that well with greens in my opinion; Mangos seem just too sweet.

3.  Salty Smoothie Soup. Trish Holder doesn’t like any kind of fruit so she substitutes apples with raw ONIONS  and sometimes a clove of GARLIC.  Since this is the ingredients for vegetable soup she then adds a tablespoon of salty MISO plus celery.  She also makes sure her soup is warm enough by using quite warm water.  I can’t testify to the taste of this mixture because I can’t handle raw onions or garlic but Trish is one smart lady who has helped a lot of people with her knowledge of food. 4.  Add some Zing with Ginger. At Real Food for Life we have promoted the benefits of ginger many times.  Here’s a chance to add some zing to your smoothie and beef up your digestion at the same time. Even one tablespoon of raw ginger is plenty.

When are greens TOO much?

Leafy green vegetables contain along with their abundance of minerals the possibility of traces of organic substances called alkaloids.  There are many different kinds of plant alkaloids but the famous ones are nicotine, cocaine, morphine, and caffeine. As you might notice these compounds have STRONG effects on the body and because of this they tend to give this class of compounds a bad reputation. Used properly alkaloids can have good effects but most people would rather not take chances.  Different plants produce different kinds of alkaloids. Therefore if you are eating a LOT of greens (as in ONE TO TWO POUNDS A DAY  as some raw foodists do) you are recommended to ROTATE your greens so you don’t get too much of any particular alkaloid.  Those large tubs of spinach are just one pound so you only have to concern yourself with this if you are going through at least one of those a day …which would be 4-8 smoothies.   Rather than concern yourself with all these small risk factors you can easily stay safe JUST by noticing your bodies reaction,  and as we stated above, IF you start not wanting a particular food than back off.

Share YOUR favorite smoothie!

I'm sure you have your own unique ingredients with smoothies.  Feel free to share them below in the comment section.  Also, feel free to share this article with anyone you feel might enjoy it!