The
Inconvenient Truth about Vegetables.
The truth exists,
literally and whatever we think or say about it doesn't change that. Conversely
that which isn't true doesn't exist and no amount of posturing, arguing or
preaching from a pulpit will change that either.
All truth passes
through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Attributed to
Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 - 1860
What you
are about to read will fit the above like a glove, the scorn and derision that
will be heaped upon it I cannot imagine but truth eventually comes to the
surface, at a guess in 2050 it will become 'self evident' so this is one of
those rare plausible glimpses into the future.
We
had a demonstration of this principle with the smoking of cigarettes, everyone
who smoked thought themselves to be cool as the 'Marlborough Man' and when it
was declared that smoking causes lung cancer and many other health issues it
was greeted with howls of derision. As time wore on and the statement gained
credibility then came the huge campaigns by the tobacco lobby to discredit the
statement but finally it became 'self evident' and now the truth of it is
accepted even by those unfortunate souls who still smoke.
Vegetables
from
a food perspective.
Mankind
is fortunate to possess a digestive system that tolerates an incredible range
of foods that really aren't ideal for our health and well being, many in common
usage today are in fact downright harmful. If this weren't so we would have
become extinct many 10s of 1000s of years ago as our ideal food sources haven't
always been available thanks to worldwide catastrophes and climate variability.
Our body's overwhelmingly No 1 requirement is blood sugar, glucose, dextrose or
whatever name you like to call it. The best source of it is fruit which
requires no laborious digestion and is delivered from the stomach to the
intestinal tract for absorption in less than an hour. Everything else has to be
digested in the stomach for at least 4 hours, digestion really means the
extraction or manufacture of glucose from that which was eaten. The average 75
Kg person has a mere (100 mg/dL) 5 grams of it in his
blood and it is constantly being used, replenished and maintained at that level
- or we die. Our brain uses 20% of our blood glucose.
Protein,
chemically, is glucose with nitrogen added to the molecule which acts as a
preservative so it can be stored, in this case throughout the body for later
processing. The body makes many things from protein like amino acids but
primarily the glucose is extracted and the nitrogen in the form of nitrates, is
disposed of in urine, at least as much of it as possible.
The
cell walls of all vegetables are made of a protein called cellulose and this
protein is foreign to mankind. All the four hoofed grazing animals are endowed
with an enzyme called cellulase, this and special gut bacteria break down that
protein coating allowing the release of the important nutrients within the
cell. Man doesn't have this enzyme so we have great difficulty accessing those
nutrients, vegetables are touted as providing roughage and that is inescapably
true.
Some
years ago a study was done in Europe on carrots and what we get from them.
First they calculated what the total nutrients were in a carrot and of this
total if someone ate one
by chewing it twice as much as normal they got 4% of them. By grating and chewing extensively they got 6%. Juicing delivered 12% to 14%. By putting it
into a blender at high speed for ½ an hour they managed to get 44%. Presumably
the blender blades physically smashed through many of the cells cellulose walls
and released the nutrients inside. A horse on the other hand can swallow the
carrot whole and get almost 100% of the nutrients because he has the appropriate enzymes.
It's
all very well in a laboratory with an atomic spectrometer or some such, to
figure out the total nutrients in a vegetable and promote sales on that basis,
where, in order to analyze a sample for its mineral
constituents, it has to be atomized thus breaking all the cell walls and
releasing trillions of atoms per cell. It's another thing entirely to
figure out how much we actually get under normal circumstances, short answer,
thanks to us not having the cellulase enzyme, not much.
Generations
of false assumptions make it easy to think that all the above is utter rubbish
but Scienceclarified.com has this to say
“Despite
the fact that humans (and many other animals) cannot digest cellulose (meaning
that their digestive systems cannot break it down into its basic constituents),
cellulose is nonetheless a very important part of the healthy human diet. This
is because it forms a major part of the dietary fiber that we know is important
for proper digestion (that part is conditional on what was eaten). Since we
cannot break cellulose down and it passes through our systems basically
unchanged, it acts as what we call bulk or roughage that helps the movements of
our intestines. Among mammals, only those that are ruminants (cud chewing
animals like cows and horses) can process cellulose. This is because they have
special bacteria and microorganisms in their digestive tracts that do it for
them. They are then able to absorb the broken-down cellulose and use its sugar
as a food source.”
We are surrounded by the facts but we just won't
'see' them. It is easier to believe a lie told 1000 times than a fact heard
only once. The author has done a ten year stint without eating even a solitary
lettuce leaf with no ill effects, in fact even to this day 12 years later, I
dread being in the predicament where good fruit isn't available and I have to
resort eating &@!$# vegetables.
Ellyn Satter’s book “Child of Mine” says “Fruits and vegetables carry
the same nutrients, so a child can
be well-nourished on either” except that the child will get
less than 10% of the vegetable's nutrients whereas it can get 100% of whatever
the fruit might contain. The book goes on “Many many great nutritionists offer a similar reassurance to
parents who worry about their child’s aversion to vegetables.”
That indicates it is a common occurrence!! A child is born
beautifully endowed with most of mankind's natural instincts in place, the
paramount one being it's ability to select by smell and taste, food suitable
for it's needs and their aversion to vegetables is natural, normal and
understandable. We, as adults have had our childhood instincts beaten out
of us, particularly that one, first by our misguided 'eat your greens' parents
and for the rest of our lives by crass commercialism of abominations to our
digestive system. While the following doesn't apply to man made foods, the
golden rule should be to feed your whole family on whatever your child will
enthusiastically eat, most times that won't be vegetables and never
ever will be Kale but will be naturally ripened fruit that has never
seen the inside of a coldroom. Do not force your child to succumb to your
dietary habits and opinions which have come about from the traditions of your
parents who were from an era where what's good for us and what is not, was
assumed from their misguided parents but never truly investigated.
Vegetables
and
what they might contain
Consumption
of veggies is a bit of a two edged sword at times. We might eat specific
veggies for our perceived need for certain minerals, cabbage for sulphur,
carrots for vitamin A, beetroot for iron etc but often there are nasties
included for which tests are never done. For example silver beet is a great
crop for taking heavy metals out of the soil, where was yours grown? Celery loves
nitrogen and farmers pile it on to get great looking celery stalks. Trouble is
because of that, celery delivers a lot of nitrates to us, more than we can
eliminate under normal circumstances, the excess become acid accumulations, all
too often in our joints. We are the only mammal that gets gout, this caused by
acid accumulation from eating 'foods' unsuited to our system.
Vegetables
and
the environment.
Vegetables
as we know them today have only been around for about 500 years and none of
them can exist in nature without our help, they just don't have the vigour or
hardiness to compete with native plants - that's our fault, we bred them that
way. For example gifted agricultural scientist Luther Burbank 1849 - 1926
developed 800 strains of plants and 26 of them were vegetables.
Quoting
sound advice from longevity and fitness guru Jack LaLanne “If man made it don't eat it” and while he
didn't realise it applied to vegetables, they are as man made as surely as is a
packet of crisps. Five hundred years is a short blink in our time space
continuum so for the other thousands or millions of years before, we survived
quite well without them.
Vegetables
were bred into existence specifically to meet out perceived needs, this
development involved mollycoddling and watering every day. Over time this has
come to be an essential part of their existence, if they don't get those
conditions they die. Our scientists today are hell bent on continuing this
trend along all species of plants under the guise of producing more food and
preventing world wide starvation. The resultant plants are unable to survive
under natural conditions, not only that, the plants so produced are delivering
less and less nutrition. For example old species of tomatoes contained nearly
2000 ppm of iron, today's species can have almost none but at least they will
roll down a flight of steps without bruising !!
Which aspect is more important to you? Guess which is more important to
a Supermarket.
Huge Variations in Mineral Content even in yesteryears vegetables, most likely worse today. |
Vegetable |
Mineral |
Highest |
Lowest |
Lettuce |
Calcium |
71.0 ME |
16.0 ME |
Snapbeans |
Magnesium |
60.0 ME |
14.8 ME |
Cabbage |
Molybdnum |
24.1 ppm |
0.0 ppm |
Spinach |
Boron |
88 ppm |
12 ppm |
Luttuce |
Manganese |
169 ppm |
1 ppm |
Tomatoes |
Iron |
1938 ppm |
1 ppm |
Tomatoes |
Copper |
0.63 ppm |
0.00 ppm |
Data source: Variation on mineral composition of vegetables by F E Bear, S J Troth and A L Prince (Rutgers University) |
A farmer prepares a
fine seedbed (opening the way for the risk of severe erosion) for his crop of
vegetables, plants them, waters them, sprays them for pests (unless he's an
organic grower) harvests them and ships them off to market. During the growing
season the plants have taken CO2 from the air and
sequestered carbon back to the soil. Farmer now prepares his soil for the next
crop, this involves plowing and cultivation in one form or another which
releases all of the carbon back into the air again !!!!!
Apart
from the Amazons Tera Preta with over 20% organic carbon, soil testing reveals
normal cropped and irrigated land can have less than 1% of organic carbon.
Horticulture, farming of fruit trees on the other hand where the soil doesn't
get plowed up every year and are managed properly will have 6.5% of organic
matter in their soils. That 5% difference doesn't sound like much but in terms
of tonnes of atmospheric CO2 it is enormous. Every
1% of organic matter per hectare equates to 60 tonnes of atmospheric carbon in
the air.
Eating
the obligatory 2 to 4 servings of vegetables every day isn't that great for
your health and you are certainly contributing to global warming.
This from - Pam Pittaway, Chrysalis
Landscape Consultants
Interest in soil
health is increasing, at a time when the concentration of organic carbon in our
cropping soils has decreased by up to 50%. Soil organic carbon is the essence
of soil health, because of its contribution to soil fertility, soil structure,
nutrient and water holding capacity, and to the survival, activity and
diversity of soil animals and microbes. Putting a dollar value on soil organic
carbon is difficult, but ignore it at your peril!
Note
that in 2014, the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctica are melting at an alarming
rate, it has been calculated that when their ice has melted away the sea level
will rise 12 meters. That will play
havoc with the tourist industry but will be insignificant compared to the drama
caused by the flooding of river deltas where most of the world's vegetables are
currently grown. Won't happen by 2050 but shortages are most likely to occur by
then which will make life even tougher for those living near the poverty line.
Vines
Of
course there isn't much that is totally either black or white, there's always a
gray area, in this case it is vines which are neither vegetable plants
nor fruit trees. The tomato is a conundrum, technically a fruit it is treated
as a vegetable yet essentially is a vine. It can survive on it's own in nature,
birds will spread its seed and they will pop up everywhere next season – but
only those varieties where man has not tried to 'improve' it's attributes.
Probably the most important vine to us is the watermelon which provides us with
huge amounts of calcium in hot weather when we need calcium the most. It tends
to hold its own in nature though not reliably, the seed in not harvested fruit
may germinate late in the season if hot enough but will normally remain dormant
in the field till the following season.
A good crop of large
sweet melons does require, if not soil cultivation then at least some form of
weed control, manual or otherwise and usually some irrigating if rainfall is
not adequate. So what about other vines, most of which are vegetables? The
defining point is whether the vine produces 'pods' with sugars (melons), pods
with carbohydrates (pumpkin) or pods that remain vegetable with cellulose cell
walls (Zucchini).
Considering
all the above one could be excused for thinking the future of mankind is headed
steeply downhill without brakes and yes it is. What if the rains don't come or
too much comes, what if volcanic ash blots out the sky for a couple of years –
it has done before. There is light at the end of the tunnel even when we
wouldn't willingly embark on the necessary changes, they could be forced upon
us. For instance it is more than likely that water shortages will come upon us,
after all we waste what we have in a scandalous fashion and note the widespread
ruination of water sources in the USA and elsewhere from shale oil production.
Several years ago a 100 years young lady
competed in the hammer throw of the Perth World Masters Games. She won it – not
a lot of competition in that age group but the fascinating part was that she
didn't just vertically swing and heave the hammer as did other senior
competitors, she twirled it around her head as do normal Olympic
athletes!!!!! Now that's suppleness 80
plus year olds (and going down into the 50s these 2015 days) can only dream
about. When asked the secret to her youthfulness she replied that
she never ate
vegetables. This was in the original interview but carefully edited out of
the re-runs !! Generally speaking,
consuming vegetables tends to mineralise the body by transforming ionic
minerals into more solid form. The choice is yours, it's on your dinner plate
and the time to act is now, when you are 80 do you want the option to take up
hammer throwing or will you need a walking stick to hobble about with?
A farmer from
whom I buy watermelons has a small farm on which he manages to grow
vegetables and melons without the use of chemical sprays. He
is next door to a big market garden enterprise that employs a
large workforce to supply large volumes of produce to supermarkets. The
interesting part is that this workforce comes to him to buy their
personal vegetables becase they know the ones they are growing are
saturated in all manner of poisonous chemicals and they wouldn't eat
them in a fit - but the unknowing public does, constantly !!!
Producing
beef for food uses 15 to 20 times as much water as the production of any other
food so a water scarcity would bring about the death knell of beef production.
Farmers who did produce it could be assisted into horticulture, for that same
area of land would feed several 100s of times more people than the beef
produced ever could. More trees means a more stable climate, more rainfall in
marginal areas, less erosion from wind or rain, a great increase in soil
carbon, less CO2 in the atmosphere, a big improvement in the
public's health, less violence, on and on it goes. How to make it happen without
nature forcing it upon us? A dictator
with a solid streak of altruism might pull it off but a democracy has next to
no chance, we'll just have to wait till extinction stares us in the face.
Home