hey guys - does anybody out there enjoy eating blended foods , such as fruits & blended salads as much as i do ? i eat blended somethings at least once a day . i just read , however , that dr. esselstyne warns against eating anything blended , because it destroys nutrients . has anyone else heard/read of this ? is it true that blending destroys nutrients to a significant degree ? any comments ?
Permalink Reply by Brian on Like most people I blend to save time. No cheating involved. People who blend fruit don't do it because their bodies can't hold the same amount of fruit. We aren't secretly destroying or getting ride of some of the fruit we put in the blender, it's all still there!
Blending fruit is just a small tool in the toolbox. Whole fruit is awesome and if you got the time I will always prefer eating things in their "non-blended state". But I'd rather eat 12 blended bananas in 40min before work than try and eat them whole and most likely not be fast enough and not get enough calories before work.
Time is the enemy not spinning metal blades.
Permalink Reply by Macuilxochitl on That's just rationalising the 'benefits' of bleding. In any case, here's my story, so you can see what my issue with blending really is:
When I finally got started on going high raw, I've been knowing it for a long time, but my HCRVism was just plodding along with the daily fruit breakfast and the occasional random datorade thrown in. So I said to myself: d00d, please, go get some more fruit, bananas are so cheap and blablabla. So I recurred to an old habit: buying very ripe, spotted bananas and making all kinds of smoothies with them, so as to get in enough variety of fruit'n greens and consistently reaching 3000 cals every day. After I few days, I still didn't really notice any changes , but I told myself: of course not, you're not doing optimal HCRV, you don't eat enough greens, you don't reach the daily amount of calcium, you don't get hours of sunlight everyday, where do you get your B12, blablabla.
So one day I woke up and I reached for the bananas and the texture was so fine and superb and beautiful that I decided to try just one, and it was good, so I ate ten, then twenty, then some more throughout the day. By evening, I notice an abnormally high level of energy.Then I look in the mirror, and I see that my skin is all glowing and smooth. I was thinking: what is this? And I was delighted and inspired and everything you can just be. Of course, I decided to keep on eating the bananas, I mean, who wouldn't; things got better with every day, by the end of the third one I was almost asploding with joy and vigor.
But of course, to all things comes an end, and I eventually ran out of 'edible' bananas. I said to myself, no big deal, just use the very ripe ones and make smoothies, it's quick, it's convenient, and you can even eat more! So I did. What I didn't understand at the end of the day: why was the glow gone? Why did my skin go from ultra-smooth to average? Why did my energy levels drop from ardor to moderateness?
Since then, I've been experimenting with this heaps of time, and the conclusion is always the same: whole fruit yields those benefits, blended fruit doesn't. It doesn't have to be 100% of whole fruit for you to benefit, just around 1000-1500 cals is already fine, but the more whole fruit you eat, the more extreme the results, of course. So, for me, the convenience of high blending simply doesn't make up for the ensuing mediocrity.
Now bear in mind that the fruits I eat most & most often is bananas, which is a rather humble food in comparison with other fruit. If i was capable of including big amounts of more juicy fruits on top of that, the benefits should go through the roof. And if I actually started chewing my greens... Good Lord.
Will I spend more time eating as a blender renegade? Probably. Is it worth the pain? You bet it is.
Permalink Reply by Brian on Hey if blending fruit makes you feel worse then absolutely do what makes you feel better. I just don't believe that by cutting up a piece of fruit we are masking the taste or somehow changing the volume of the fruit to "cheat" nature and fill ourselves with more food.
A few blended bananas and a few bananas chewed up thoroughly will appear the same, minus the saliva and water. They will also be the same volume if you didn't swallow any of the banana while chewing.
They will taste different because you pre-chewed the banana in the blender and have mixed it with water and you have yet to break it down from a solid in your mouth and will have less moisture without the water. Of course you still should chew the blended banana to work in your saliva and digestive enzymes.
The benefits of a banana are not taken away when you cut it into multiple pieces (blending). Blending isn't something you should regard as a cheat or a way to down-grade your food or mask the taste. I seriously doubt anyone here blends their bananas because they don't care for the flavor and wish to mask it with other fruit. If someone doesn't like the flavor of bananas they probably just won't eat them lol.
Do what is natural and what enables you to eat enough fruit and be satiated throughout the day.
I didn't even own a blender a few months ago and struggled greatly with eating enough calories as well as getting enough sleep, working out, helping my folks, working. Since I've purchased a blender I can have bigger breakfasts in a shorter period of time before work, take longer bike rides, get more things done.
Do I need to blend every single day? Absolutely not, and I don't. Will I ever blend watermelon? Heck no! I enjoy eating them out of their shell far too much to make them into a smoothie. Same goes for green/red leaf lettuce.
Permalink Reply by Macuilxochitl on I already know all of the logical reasons you put to prove the merit of smoothies, as well as I know several logical conclusions that are intended to disprove the benefits of blending. Conjections and assumptions just won't cut it for me. That is why I provided my own experience in first place. I suppose we can call it yet another debate of pragmatism vs. idealism and leave it at that :)
Permalink Reply by Brian on I was just trying to explain my own informed opinion, because when I read your first message I was surprised. I've never seen someone on this forum tell someone else they were "cheating" at being HCRV or "cheating" nature in fact by blending. Blending being a very common and accepted practice here on 30BAD.
Maybe it wouldn't have caught my attention so much if you used a different word besides "cheat". It's hard enough for someone to transition into eating HCRV, let alone telling them that they are now cheating nature and from here on in things won't get any better for them. A not very supportive message to someone, even if you are honestly trying to help.
Permalink Reply by Macuilxochitl on When I say "you can't cheat on nature", I mean that if you do things differently from how nature intended, the outcome will most likely change. That has proven to be true for me, and it doesn't go further than that.
I wasn't condemning anyone. If this is about judgements, I am the biggest "cheater" of all: 90% of my fruit intake has been blended for the past two years.
Permalink Reply by Brian on Support I think is the real purpose of 30Bad and I always try to communicate that with my words even if I'm focused on being informative or being opinionated.
Whether you believe someone is doing something wrong I would still try and frame my response with support instead of just saying you doing it wrong, don't expect the best results, peace. This might be just me though.
Permalink Reply by Jupiterinka on Blending greens is the only way I'll eat them, so I do 2 green smoothies a day. I also blend bananas & other fruit for breakfast and snacks. Many days, I only eat blended foods, so I hope it's safe. I like it, but sometimes I want to chew something. In that case, I make something different.
Permalink Reply by Freshtival on
I think peristalsis is a factor in healthy digestion that may be effected by blending plant foods. I think that blended foods and especially foods pulverized by a VitaMix hammermill blade can result in such a fine texture of pureed fiber that it may travel slower through the digestive tract because there is less substantive content for the peristalsis to "grab" onto. Also I think the pureed food fiber may not be as useful for removing toxins as the whole food fiber is.
Permalink Reply by Freshtival on
I was just thinking about the impact of the hammermill blade in the VitaMix blender (I have one) and its effect on the nutrients in the food. Basically the hammermill blade works like a baseball bat hitting the food out of the ballpark and then instead of becoming a home run the food runs abruptly into the blender wall. I was just wondering what this double impact does to the bonds that the plant has so carefully established to make the food usable to us plant eaters. I would be interested in hearing any thoughts/opinions about the effect of the collision of the bat, the food and the wall on the food nutrients.
Permalink Reply by ORGANIC811LFRV on Dr. E isn't 80/10/10. You can't follow 2 conflicting programs at a time. Dr. E's program is great when someone is converting from SAD to better. This program is BEST.
As to answering your question: 1 do a quart of fruit smoothie followed later in the day with a green smoothie, followed by fruit snacks ending with a humongous salad.
Please take some time and read 80/10/10 if you haven't already done so.
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