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Conventional belief is that raw vegetables are always healthier than cooked, but this is not true depending on the plant foods eaten according to lab testing and anthropological evidence by experts in the field.
I stopped by one of my favorite healthfood stores today to pick up a large glass of fresh juice made from organic raw vegetables for an early lunch on the go. As usual, I asked for the a carrot, celery, beet, spinach and cucumber blend. But, hold the spinach. I definitely skipped the green smoothie too!
While this request is usually met with a simple nod by the juice bar attendant, this time the guy looks up and says, “Why no spinach? We have a lot of people that come in here and love the spinach in their juice.”
Ah! Great question!
The truth is that not everything should be eaten raw, especially vegetables!
Some raw vegetables must be cooked else you are actually harming yourself. Below is a rundown of what veggies should not be eaten raw either in whole or juiced form.
Cruciferous Raw Vegetables
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but cruciferous vegetables should be cooked before eating as they contain chemicals that BLOCK the production of thyroid hormone in your body! Considering that 2 out of every 3 Westerners are either overweight or obese and this is projected to jump to 75% by 2020, this is of particular importance as folks struggling with weight usually suffer from borderline to full-blown hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism is a condition where the thyroid gland does not make enough thyroid hormone, so someone suffering from this condition surely does not want to be eating foods that will block what little thyroid hormone is being produced in the first place!
Symptoms of hypothyroidism include cold hands and feet, thinning hair, fatigue, reduced or nonexistent libido, coarse dry hair, constipation, difficulty losing weight, and depression among many others.
Cooking crucifers reduces the goitrogenic substances by about 2/3. Fermentation does not reduce goitrogens in these veggies, but since fermented crucifers such as sauerkraut are typically eaten as a condiment and, hence, in small amounts, consumption is fine if the diet is rich in iodine.
Here is the list of common cruciferous vegetables that you do not want to be eating raw if you want to protect your thyroid gland!
Arugula, broccoli, kale, maca root, cauliflower, cabbage, turnip, collard greens, bok choy, brussels sprouts, radish, rutabaga, and watercress.
Notice that many of these vegetables are commonly included in fresh veggie juice blends or in salads. While an occasional arugula salad or cup of coleslaw is not going to do harm to most folks, it would be wise not to make a habit of eating/drinking any of these vegetables in raw form. Kale chips are a safe choice too.
Raw Vegetable Greens
Some veggie greens contain a chemical called oxalic acid. This substance is a very irritating to the mouth and intestinal tract. It also blocks iron and calcium absorption and may contribute to the formation of kidney stones.
The good news is that oxalic acid is reduced by a light steaming or cooking. Just be sure to discard the vegetable cooking water.
Veggies containing oxalic acid include spinach, chard, parsley, chives, purslane and beet greens.
Hmmmm. Spinach is known for being high in iron, yet eating it raw will not necessarily give you the iron you want because of the oxalic acid?
Yep, that’s right. Cook that spinach first if you are seeking an iron boost without the indigestion and don’t get hooked on the raw spinach salads!
Don’t stress about munching the parsley garnish on your next gourmet dinner, though. A little bit here and there is not going to cause a problem. Eat a big spinach salad everyday and it is virtually certain you will eventually succumb to kidney stones, according to Dr. William Shaw, Director of The Great Plains Laboratory for Health, Nutrition and Metabolism.
Other Raw Vegetable Cautions
Other vegetables that are best to avoid eating raw include:
- Raw potatoes contain hemagglutinins that disrupt red blood cell function.
- Raw sweet potatoes will give you gas.
- Raw, edible mushrooms such as the common white mushroom contain toxic substances such as agaritine, a suspected carcinogen. These substances are heat sensitive and are neutralized by cooking.
- Raw alfalfa sprouts are mildly toxic and inhibit the immune system. Eating large quantities regularly can make the skin overly sensitive to the sun or trigger autoimmune symptoms that mimic lupus.
Dr. Weston A. Price on Raw Vegetables
A good rule of thumb when considering the best way to consume your veggies is to remember the letter that Dr. Weston A. Price wrote to his nieces and nephews in 1934. In this letter, he strongly urged them to eat their vegetables cooked in butter. His research found that the bulkiness (fiber) of raw vegetables interfered with the human body’s ability to extract minerals from them via the digestive process.
So, should you drink your veggies raw? Of course. Raw vegetable juice made from veggies that are safe to consume uncooked is a wonderful way to get a fast infusion of easy to digest, colloidal minerals. It is also highly alkalizing to the body and a proven way to gently detox the gut.
The great thing about veggie juice is that the fiber is removed, which is the “bulkiness” that Dr. Price found interfered with the mineral absorption.
However, if you are going to eat the fibrous portion of the vegetable, it is best to cook them in butter as advised by Dr. Price to enhance the availability of the minerals. The fat in the butter permits greater absorption of the minerals, and besides, buttered veggies taste fantastic!
References
Nourishing Traditions
The Role of Oxalates in Chronic Disease, William Shaw PhD (Director of The Great Plains Laboratory for Health, Nutrition and Metabolism)
More Information
Best Green Juice for Congestion
Nightshade Vegetable Contraindications
Cleansing Myths
Sarah,
my family and I do drink raw milk and love it. But, we aneed to get healthy. I am prediabetic, my son, age 7, has reflux (he was a premie baby), and my husband had low thyroid and low hormones.
My husband and I are overweight and need to get healthy so I just spent 800 dollars on a vitamixer!. A friend of mine’s dad had cancer and he went to a raw diet and between that and getting treated at md Anderson. He is cured now. They are convinced his diet helped him.
So I was going to start making green smoothies. I was not going to go crazy bit just add it in a couple times a week. While researching which ones to try, I found your blog. I am soo disappointed. Do you have any suggestions for smoothies? It does heat the vegetables on higher speeds I think? Does that help? How can I use this expensive piece of equipment?
I hope you are still answering posts. I never post anything but this is so important to me.
I am so confused now.
Thank you so much !
Julie
Julie,
Sarah is a not a doctor or someone with any type of medical credentials. She is just a housewife with a blog. Please, for the love of God, do not make decisions on your health based on one article from one individual. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.
There is lots of information and documentation that raw foods and plant based food can and has indeed healed cancer. Please get the movie “The Gerson Miracle” and watch it. One of the best investments in your health you could have ever made was getting your Vitamix. Use it — and use it everyday!
Sarah is very critical of raw foods, vegans and anything or anyone that contradicts her personal agenda and beliefs — which is that you HAVE to consume animal products to be healthy and we all know this is not true.
She has no documentation or research to back up the claims in this article except for her “Weston Price Foundation” (a DENTIST from over 100 years ago) of which she is affiliated with. That’s it. Nothing else.
Please do not risk your health and the health of your family because of this article. Leave this blog and seek out other information that is not so biased and that is supported by facts and research. This is not it.
What a load of dung. You should be ashamed. Your research skills are horrible and you are doing your audience a great disservice by perpetuating such scientifically unsupported and unhealthy misinformation. Shame on you.
All the author is saying is one should “listen” to their body when it comes to what one eats . For example, there are studies out there that say peanuts are good for you. If you are person with a peanut allergy ( and common sense, hopefully ) you are not going to out and start eating peanuts. The same is with raw greens. One can’t deny that body chemistry varies from person to person, and this variance can have a profound affect on digestive health. One can argue that cave men ate raw, but there is also archaelogical evidents that show they cooked some of their food too. If cooking was really that bad none of us would be here to talk about it. Also cooking is really a chemistry experiment. Now ask yourself, how many of us out there are wizards at chemistry ?
Hyperthyroidism fits with obese people… yes.
Raw veggies fit with healthy, happy people… yes
Raw foodists normally don’t have Hyperthyroidism… right?!
Please don’t be telling people who need to lose weight, or otherwise, to kill their food! Open your eyes!! Look up The Gerson Miracle, enlighten yourself!! Watch it on Netflix. There are also many other recent documentaries on America’s food problem, look them up, everyone should watch these!!
Lol, I doubt Sarah is willing to let go of her view that raw vegetables are dangerous. See, it all starts with her laziness, her addiction to cooked food, and her personal dislike of raw vegetables. (It is actually well documented that raw vegetables, especially crucifers, contain certain bitter tasting compounds that are despised by children and adults with child-like brains.) Next comes Sarah’s intuitive guilt for failing to provide for herself and for her family the one thing capable of counteracting all the oxidative insult and heme-iron related damage caused by her poor food choices, i.e. raw cruciferous vegetables. And, finally, comes Sarah’s refusal to correct her mistake and instead her desire to drag down everyone else who will listen to her by scaring and misleading them into thinking that raw vegetables are dangerous.
In other words, if Sarah is going to force her family to be unhealthy pigs for the sake of her own mental and courage-related shortcomings, then you best not dare be any healthier.
David~
Heme-iron is the most bioavailable iron. Iron is a necessity to the human body. Most people (especially women) cannot secure iron from plant based diets. It is LIFE THREATENING not to have enough iron stores in the body. Certain raw vegetables contain chemicals that inhibit and interfere with iron absorption. Spinach is not a good source of bioavailable iron.
Heme-iron is ONLY secured from animal products, mainly red meat.
According to data from the USDA the Oxalic Acid Content of kale is fairly low. Spinach is high but so are carrots, chives and parsley.
they ate raw veggies for hundreds of years. it does both hurt you and there are a lot of studies that prove it but then there is this ONE. sorry luv but your wrong.
“There is NO food that is worth consuming that benefits from burning/cooking it…” – totally true; turning living food into dead matter and then consuming it is never ideal and is not what our bodies are designed/evolved to recognize as anything other than the invasion of potentially desease-causing substances. (It’s an experiment started by the human species 6,000 years ago – a failed experiment.) Not to say that there are not many who feel quite healthy eating lots of cooked brown rice or quinoa – including myself.
regarding the whole meat thing – relax, everyone. “we are omnivores”, some say. well, let’s say instead, we are humans, we can do any thing we want. we can eat each other, for example. no one claims we are carnivores: we’ve no fangs like cats and vampires 😉 …so, i would say to those who like to live as omnivores, perhaps you should look at carnivores to guide your meat-eating practices. they like the internal organs, preferably raw & wriggling – and that is where (in a healthy, natural beast) the nutrients are. eating the muscles is not their preference. eating dead muscle executed 5 days ago, which would and should be grey (even at whole foods) is even less their preference.
btw, i and many others will tell you that having got on a healthy or even relatively-healthy vegetarian diet, can awaken your spirituality… don’t look to science; just try it if you really want to know.
again, those still stuck in trusting scientist, western philosophy, doctors, et cetera – idk, read pirsig’s zen & the art of motorcycle maintance for starters. or just look at people who are healthy – like the Japanese for example. Look at the healthy ones and what they do and don’t do – and be sure to note How they do what they do (soaking grains first, for example) and listen to the quiet voice of sense in you and be adventurous and find the health and bliss that is our natural state.
And – I like Sarah’s article. Good info there, I think. A raw carrot/celery/beet/cucumber juice sounds delightful!
Finally, best thing I have found so far (in terms of this big thing we call, food), is blue-green algae. Spirulina & Chlorella – raw powders, to be specific (from z natural foods – I’m not connected with them). Best way to acquire a taste for them: mash a teaspoon or tablespoon of either in a nice raw honey, make an emerald-gold paste (technically, it’s closer to black in color ;), and try it, maybe for desert. And sea vegetables are gold. Find one you like. Nori is the easiest. & Wakame is particularly nice.
And yoga or meditation is worth more than all of our thoughts on food, all put together.
This woman does not know what she is talking about.
what an appalling article.. written by a foolish dishonest and remarkably ill informed person
what a dozy trollop! ..”(but, PLEASE eat some meat! You’re looking a wee bit pale)”… for someone who is supposed to have a handle on food and nutrition doesn’t the nitwit know that the carentoids are how to get a healthy skin tone.. the flabby skin colour of heme iron/ blood from eating dead animals can actually make folk appear mildly repulsive..
There is NO food that is worth consuming that benefits from burning/cooking it.. this is not up for debate it is fact and poor weston price must be curling his toes with the emnbarrassment of seeing his work so misused……doh
Wow you know when you have hit a sore spot when someone’s response is riddled with insults and no facts…
You mentioned alfalfa sprouts are slightly toxic and shouldn’t be eaten raw. Does that include other types of sprouts, too? Broccoli is mentioned to not eat raw, so no broccoli sprouts either? Great article! Just need a bit more details on this. Thanks!
Hi Original Writer,
can you please provide references to information and scientific studies to back up your claims about
1) oxalates, how cooking reduces them, whether the amounts present in raw veggies is actually enough to cause kidney stones;
2) raw cruciferous vegetables and HOW MUCH is necessary to reduce thyroid function
3) whatever dr price says
thank you