Health benefits of a wholefoods plant-based diet

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Mkoll
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Re: Health benefits of a wholefoods plant-based diet

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dagon wrote:Hi Ben and All

I hope that you don’t mind me drifting the thread a bit.

What is your take on the raw food/cooked food debate; benefits and otherwise in relation to vegetarian and vegan diets.

Metta
paul
If you don't have any digestive disorders, I would recommend eating a mixture of raw and cooked food. On the one hand, cooking usually degrades nutrients (in most cases; some exceptions are specifically lycopene in tomatoes and beta carotene in carrots are increased when cooked). On the other, cooking makes food easier for the body to digest; imagine trying to eat grains without cooking them! Raw foods contain the full sprectrum of the food's enzymes and the nutrients aren't degraded as when one cooks. However, they can be somewhat hard to digest in some cases; for example, deep leafy green vegetables like kale, collard greens, chard, etc. should be cooked - cooking helps break down the cellulose in the vegetable cell walls. Fruits, nuts, and seeds can be eaten raw. Here's a recent article with a little background on the evolutionary aspect of it.

The Middle Way in all things :smile:

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James
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
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Ben
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Re: Health benefits of a wholefoods plant-based diet

Post by Ben »

dagon wrote:What is your take on the raw food/cooked food debate; benefits and otherwise in relation to vegetarian and vegan diets.
Hi Paul
I try and refrain from most debates.
I like both raw and cooked foods. I love fruit and in the warmer months I'm a big fan of salads. I think the whole nutrient loss through cooking has been overstated to a large degree and nutrient loss can be minimised by cooking method.
What a lot of raw food proponents forget is that there are quite a few nutrients that are not available until foods that they are in have been cooked and cooking can make some foods more palatable - such as onions, potatoes and beans.
The other thing worth mentioning, and this is in relation to vegetarian and omnovore diet is that some nutrients are blocked from absorption when combined with certain other food products. One that comes to mind is case of chocolate. Pure (non-dutch processed) cocoa is very healthful and packed full of phyto-nutrients but many of them are blocked when combined with dairy.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

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dagon
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Re: Health benefits of a wholefoods plant-based diet

Post by dagon »

Ben wrote:
dagon wrote:What is your take on the raw food/cooked food debate; benefits and otherwise in relation to vegetarian and vegan diets.
Hi Paul
I try and refrain from most debates.
I like both raw and cooked foods. I love fruit and in the warmer months I'm a big fan of salads. I think the whole nutrient loss through cooking has been overstated to a large degree and nutrient loss can be minimised by cooking method.
What a lot of raw food proponents forget is that there are quite a few nutrients that are not available until foods that they are in have been cooked and cooking can make some foods more palatable - such as onions, potatoes and beans.
The other thing worth mentioning, and this is in relation to vegetarian and omnovore diet is that some nutrients are blocked from absorption when combined with certain other food products. One that comes to mind is case of chocolate. Pure (non-dutch processed) cocoa is very healthful and packed full of phyto-nutrients but many of them are blocked when combined with dairy.
kind regards,

Ben
Hi Ben
Thanks for your response - what you said conforms with what i had seen elsewhere, i just wanted to see if i had missed any thing.

Maintain equanimity in the face of some threads is something that i am trying to develop to avoid inflicting suffering on others. :thinking:

metta
paul
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Ben
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Re: Health benefits of a wholefoods plant-based diet

Post by Ben »

dagon wrote: Maintain equanimity in the face of some threads is something that i am trying to develop to avoid inflicting suffering on others. :thinking:
And don't forget to also consider the suffering you may be inflicting on yourself!
Anyway, time to return to topic.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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DNS
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Re: Health benefits of a wholefoods plant-based diet

Post by DNS »

Ben wrote: What a lot of raw food proponents forget is that there are quite a few nutrients that are not available until foods that they are in have been cooked and cooking can make some foods more palatable - such as onions, potatoes and beans.
I agree. I eat some fruits and also salads, but the majority of my foods are cooked. I can't imagine eating a raw potato! Some foods probably have to be cooked.
Pure (non-dutch processed) cocoa is very healthful and packed full of phyto-nutrients but many of them are blocked when combined with dairy.
Yes, you can even feel the difference between milk-chocolate and dark-chocolate. I can almost feel it going right to my skin, producing too much oil when I ate milk-chocolate. I eliminated milk-chocolate from my diet years ago and glad I did so.
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Ben
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Re: Health benefits of a wholefoods plant-based diet

Post by Ben »

Hi David,
David N. Snyder wrote:Yes, you can even feel the difference between milk-chocolate and dark-chocolate. I can almost feel it going right to my skin, producing too much oil when I ate milk-chocolate. I eliminated milk-chocolate from my diet years ago and glad I did so.
I actually take a tea-spoon of 100% cocoa powder and sprinkle it into about 100g of mixed raspberries and blueberries and put it in the microwave until warm and semi-liquid and eat it with about 50g of chopped pecans. The tartness of the berries is well balanced against the bitterness of the chocolate and there is just enough sweetness to take the edge off both. Very healthy and satisfying.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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