This is one of my favorite questions, having a macrobiotic and raw food background since 1972.
Being honest, I personally feel better if I add some cooked grains to my raw food diet.
And …. I’m not the only one. At the leading raw food communities, the Tree of Life in Arizona and Israel and the Hippocrates Institute in Florida, there are some grains on the menu.
There are two ways in which you can eat grains.
Of course you can sprout them or grow wheat- or barley grass and eat them raw. This way you can add grains to your diet and still eat 100% raw.
Another way is to add some cooked non-stored grains, like wild rice, quinoa, buckwheat, millet and amaranth to your diet. Even diabetes patients do well on these grains. You can cook the grains for about 15 minutes and eat them with a raw (for instance tomato) sauce, use them in a salad, in desserts or as a breakfast cereal.
If you do want to eat grains, the ones mentioned above are best. Stored grains like wheat, rye, oats and barley ferment in ninety days. Within that time mycotoxins are formed, toxins produced by an organism of the fungus kingdom, which includes mushrooms, molds and yeasts. These are a hazard to our health. Research has shown a correlation between different forms of cancer and mycotoxins.
For more information about this, you can read Gabriel Cousens book “Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine”, page 17-23.
If you do want to eat some grains, feel how your body reacts. Too much of them may cause too much acidity and make you feel tired and heavy. Always add good quality salt if you cook grains. This makes them more alkaline. Find your ideal balance.
In some cases it’s better to add cooked grains to your diet, than to eat too much of the sweet fruits, like mango or banana or a lot of nuts for the sake of your caloric intake.
So far I found that many long term vegetarians and raw foodies lack minerals, vitamin B12 and are undernourished in general. Adding some non-stored cooked grains might be very helpful in those cases.
Please leave your comment below and let me know, if you have any experience adding cooked grains to your raw food diet and what your opinion is.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Is it okay to add grains to your raw food diet?
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5 comments:
I used to eat a cooked cereal in the morning, when I was was trying to be healthy in the past. Oatmeal made my blood sugar problems dissappear. (which now are non-existent 1 year raw) But cracked toasted wheat gave me energy unlike any other. This then, was double cooked, once being toasted and secondly boiled and softened. I used to run like the wind when I ate that, however it was very difficult for my system to process because of fermentation. I suppose if I were to incorporate some greens into my diet back then the problem would have been much less.
It is interesting to note that Roman soldiers in the past used to chew on grains of wheat.
I do pretty well with sprouted wheat crackers etc.
Love your blog and videos!
Sam
I've done well with both cooked grains and with raw, dehydrated meal.
As for cooked grains, I've recently followed the advice of Dr. Gabe Mirkin (http://www.drmirkin.com) and his book, The Healthy Heart Miracle Diet, based on the "DASH" Diet. Cooked grains however just supplement predominate doses of greens and fruits in green smoothies and many other forms, and nuts/legumes/seeds, etc...
The raw meal/grain form that I've successfully used in the past happens to to be based on Chinese Medicine theory, that is discussed in the "B1 Chinese Medicine" topic on this Blog. It's called Seangshik, and is produced by a company named Oh Haeng from South Korea. It consists of different mixtures of grains, legumes, nuts, vegetables and even some fruit, based on different body type constitutions (e.g., as evident in facial shape) and the different tastes discussed in the B1 posting.
Agree - good content collection on this site.
This post if very interesting! - What do you mean by "stored" and "non-stored" grains?
I have difficulty eating what you refer to as "stored" grains. I was off grains for a couple of years and recently started to eat brown rice again (is this stored or non-stored?). Reintroducing brown rice into my diet has made a world of different with my health.
Thank you!
I gave up all grains 3 months ago. I read a book by a guy called david Klein, it is for people who suffer from Colitis or chrons. It advocates a raw food diet with no grains. it got me interested in this whole area and now I am more or less a raw food vegan. i feel really good, healthy & positive & am now very curious to expand my knowledge & experience. I have started to consume a small amount of spelt bread which seems fine but no other grains for me. Stored grains I think means, mass storage in musty conditions. ie ''not fresh'' . Thank you so much for this great resource of information. very helpful & motivating. peace
Stored grains are grains stored in a silo for over three months. Brown rice is non-stored.
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