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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
So Are you saying its OK to still eat spinach as long as we steam it first? I really love all the nutrients and i have raw spinach anyway! I usually blanch it a few minutes per side in butter. Or is it best to avoid this if you have symptoms of leaky gut?
I’m a vegetarian and certainly not pale. Getting pretty sick of people picking on Raw Foodists and Vegetarians. Stop being so against it. It works for some and not for others.
Lol.. Uh, you do look a little pale in your profile pic (nice btw)… but whats more important than that is you look happy and healthy. Really, I think the pale statement was just as ignorant as saying someones eyes are too blue or hair is too brown. Some people NATURALLY have pale skin, its not an automatic indicator of bad health! On the other hand if she had said jaundice, then that’s a real health problem. But her post is filled with so much uneducated information, I don’t think she knows the difference.
And to add : pasteurized (heated) diary is EXTREAMLY toxic!!! So when you cook your vibrant alive veggies in butter, it makes me sad! thats horrible!! at least cook it in coconut oil!!
look into it people!! the HUGE difference between organic raw dairy and pasteurized diary!!
the dairy industry is owned by the most evil people on earth…. it is making everyone sick, even more than the meat….
Sarah, you don’t really sound so smart with all the claims you make…..
I come from a Standard American Diet being raised as a child with a parent who didn’t know how to cook. I was very very sick growing up as a child.
Now, im 30 years young now, eat a mostly raw vegan diet with occasional organic raw cheese and i also eat organic and local clean beef or bison about once a month. I feel the best i have ever had in my whole life. I used to be full vegan raw and i felt just as amazing. If im totally vegan, i just need to supplement my diet with lots of spirulina and hemp seeds and i don’t have the need for animal protien. 10 years ago when i started eating vegan, i was a “junk food vegan” eating lots of fake meat and soy products and other processed foods. During this time i was not feeling so great yet. It took me having to make a total life change and let go of what was no longer serving me; gluten, sugar, pasteurized dairy, sick meat and diary from sick animals and all processed foods and alcohol. Cutting all of this out of my diet for years, i truly feel the best ever! Also, detoxing helped allot and taking out my silver fillings in my teeth full of mercury helped also. I drink allot of water, go on walks and stretch every day. Over the years, i have educated myself through trial and error and research and conversation. i feel like i have now finally gotten to a place of knowing in my body. Before you do ANY detox or diet transition or change, please educate your self about it first. And research for your self with an open and neutral mind. THEN, truly experience it for yourself before making such claims towards other uneducated people.
the idea of steaming or worse sautéing in butter all the spinach i get out of my garden makes me physically ill. it goes from sweet crisp fresh and delicious to a horrible limp wilted buttery tragedy. all the nutrition “science” in the world couldn’t convince meat that veggies sautéed in cows’s milk fat is superior to leaves out of the garden? i use to milk cows on my grandmothers farm and its one of the most disgusting processes i can think of, the cows smell to high heaven as you’re trying to milk them and even though it doesnt affect the taste of the milk its just impossible not to associate the sh*t covered hind end of the cow, and their dirty uters with what comes out. And yes we had healthy, happy, grass fed, open pasture cows, still dirty with flies hovering about and such. i still have no idea on earth why someone would drink milk from cows, if my neighbor offered me her breastmilk id probably throw up even worse its from dirty animals – same way i feel about cows milk or anything made from it :O and I’m not a vegetarian. Even the best organic, natural farm, milks cows when pregnant and then keeps them continually pregnant the level of hormones you’re getting in that cows milk are astronomical, for anyone with hypothyroid, pcos, or any other hormonal imbalances that seems way worse than a little raw spinach.
Ha, I love your comment! I always wondered why people are so disgusted with human breast milk, and probably wouldn’t even taste it if they were offered a million bucks, but don’t even give a second thought to drinking milk from a dirty cow, probably filled with pus, hormones and antibiotics(because let’s be honest, most people don’t buy milk from happy organic grass fed cows, they just buy the cheapest milk at the grocery store). I find it repulsive to be honest, and feel sorry for the cows. Actually the whole dairy “process” makes me feel ill.
I’ll take the raw spinach, thank you very much!
I think I’m willing to risk it. what kind off salads are you actually allowed to eat? i love greens, granted kale is always cooked, but i can’t imagine life without raw spinach. thats like life without sunshine!
I’m confused, if you said not to drink the water that the vegs are cooked in why is it ok to eat the butter they were cooked in?
What about lettuce? Is it ok to make salads from romaine lettuce?
I’ll definitely not be doing spinach/arugula salads anymore! (Which is fine–i love them both cooked anyway!) Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I knew some vegetables, like cabbage and Brussels were goiterogenic, but didn’t know it was such an extensive list.
What a load of absolute RUBBISH and harmful twaddle! I eat nearly all vegetables raw whenever I feel like it and they do a great deal of good, especially the raw greens which help my aging kidneys perform very much better. I have an astonishingly high IQ.
There are just one or two simple cautions. Yams must be cooked as they are otherwise poisonous. Do not eat raw kidney beans in any quantity. Spinach in smoothies or as baby spinach is absolutely fine, Just don’t eat masses of the stuff or drink a lot of spinach smoothies in a day. Avoid giving spinach (even cooked) unless specially processed to babies and very young children. Their kidneys being small can’t cope with much oxalic acid. Don’t eat vast quantities of cabbage/kale raw as very large amounts of raw cabbage/kale can poison you. A few leaves at a time will do you nothing but extreme good!
I eat all of these raw, and in decent amounts – carrots (don’t eat older carrot leaves) , leeks, onions, spring onions, cabbage, savoy (curly) cabbage, red cabbage, garden beans (all kinds except not haricot beans) including young runner beans, peas, Chinese greens, Chinese (Napa) cabbage, swede, young white potatoes (never eat potato leaves nor potato fruits, nor green potatoes), broccoli (green and sprouting), cauliflower, young cauliflower leaves, red radish, commercially grown watercress (home gathered might contain dangerous liver flukes) and of course capsicum (sweet peppers – any color), cucumber, lettuce and tomatoes, chicory, mushrooms, bean sprouts, salad leaves (radicchio, young beetroot leaves, young kale leaves, other edible green leaves, lamb’s lettuce) and celery including celery leaves (amazingly good for keeping your kidneys and liver healthy and functioning well). I also eat a good mix of nuts and bran products and of course plenty of fresh fruit when I can. (Avoid the ‘nuts’ in peaches, plums, nectarines and apricots unless cooked – these are poisonous in quantity if uncooked)
You can if you wish also eat wild blackberries (have multi berry heads), wild blueberries, bilberries, wild mountain berries (be sure to know which varieties are SAFE to eat), rose hips, beech nuts (not too many at a time), dandelion leaves (avoid the bitter stems), clover, young sheep sorrel leaves, wood sorrel, chickweed (in small amounts, otherwise it acts like figs or prunes!), burdock stems and taproots young stripped of their skins, amaranth, young plantain leaves, purslane, wild asparagus, garlic grass, cattail (bullrush), curled dock stalks (boil leaves -bitter otherwise), field pennycress, fireweed aka willow-herb (better young leaves), green seaweed (!), kelp seaweed (!), prickly pear cactus (remove spines!!), white mustard, arrowhead root. BUT if you can’t safely identify these yourself, do NOT eat wild plants.
Also never as in never ever collect wild mushrooms or wild fungi unless you are an EXPERT or have an EXPERT with you. There are two mushrooms that look very like field or horse mushrooms that are deadly poisonous, as are many fungi, if wrongly identified, which is exceptionally as in exceptionally easy to do. Also avoid any wild plants that might have been sprayed with pesticide or herbicides.
There are a few other wild plants that are edible or tolerable in smaller amounts, but I haven’t mentioned most of these as they are or can be easily confused with more poisonous plants.
If I ate nothing but any one of these raw I would no doubt have problems but by eating plenty of raw vegetables as an assortment, they are astonishingly as in incredibly good for me (and you!!!!)