I admit it. I have vegetables. I know I need them for a healthy diet, but try as I might, I can’t eat them consistently .
There are various suppliments with powdered dehydrated greens. I wonder how they stack up against buying a quality juicer. I know I lose the fiber with a mechanical juicer. But I feel that one of these options is my best bet to get the nutrients I need. I can always add fiber. What are your opinions?
BTW, does anyone have a good recommendation for a quality juicer? Or for that matter, a quality greens suppliment? I know JB recommended one, but I can’t remember the name.
Vegetables, although good for you, are not essential. I you eat enough animal products you’ll be fine. What I do is I buy these bags of mixed veggies that are available in any supermarket and eat a third or half a packet in one sitting any time in the day.
I have found a powdered greens drink that I’d recommend trying. I travel for business, and it comes in very handy. I can say it makes me feel healthier for sure. In addition to having all of the healthy greens in it, it has a fairly substantial mix of ingredients that are said to support your immune system and adaption to stress. Many green drinks have this stuff, but this brand is the only one where I can tell the difference between taking it and not taking it. It doesnt taste like ass, just really “green”. If you can imagine what the color green tastes like, this is it. Sweetened with Stevia, certainly no worse than the protein powders we all used to drink in the late 80’s, and this stuff doesnt make you fart. On that note, has acidophilus, FOS, etc… Pretty much an all around health food product.
Though it’s pricey compared to buying nothing, or a cheaper brand, I felt like it was the only brand worth buying ever since - and it’s been maybe 2 years.
I’d go for a juicer. Hands-down the best way to to keep you healthy. The best thing is that you can really start using food as medication with a juicer. You can cure ulcers, stop inflammation, reduce pain, increase blood flow to certain genetial parts, and so on… all with (vegetable+herb) juice.
Once you’ve tried a workout after having a vegetable juice loaded with fresh ginger root and other stimulating superfoods, you’ll never turn back.
Oops, forgot to answer your other question: The best type of juicer is a slow-turning masticating type of juicer. It’s quiet (relative to the others) and doesn’t heat up the air. Plus you can use it for making your own nut butters, ground beef, pasta, etc.
Typical models+brands are:
Omega 8002 Single Gear Juicer
Solo Star Juicer
Champion 2000+
All of these have the same design - a huge motor to one side, and a snout where the pulp comes out.
You can add some of the pulp back in to your juice and blend it up in order to get back some of the fibre to keep your intestines happy.
[quote]w2097 wrote:
Vegetables, although good for you, are not essential. If you eat enough animal products you’ll be fine. What I do is I buy these bags of mixed veggies that are available in any supermarket and eat a third or half a packet in one sitting any time in the day.[/quote]
YOU FRICKING KIDDING ME?!?!?! I hope the nutritionists on this site don’t rally to get you banned from posting! You seriously need to put the crack pipe down, because you are no longer being rational!
You CANNOT live HEALTHILY WITHOUT veggies!!! Sure you will “survive” on animal products, but you will not thrive.
Without the nutrients in veggies you cannot process all that animal flesh. The absorption rate will plummet without the vitamins, minerals, fiber, enzymes, and probiotics that you can only get from plants. Not to mention, to be disease free you need an alkaline pH. Without veggies your pH tends to get acidic = cancer.
I won’t go on ad nauseam, but if it weren’t for our amino acid needs we should ONLY be eating fruits/veggies!
As far as to juice or not to juice… isn’t that a question for the steroid forum???.. haha… ha… right, okay. I think you need BOTH! A food like carrots often times passes through you with 50-60-70% of it’s nutrition still locked inside it! That’s because some veggies are almost too fibrous and could be slightly blanched or steamed to optimize their nutritional value. Veggies like your lettuces are probably best raw. But, the harder the veggie the more suited it is for cooking/juicing.
I too have heard those “veggies in a bottle” are helpful, but I would still treat them strickly as an ADDITION/SUPPLEMENT to your diet. I would not use them in place of any one veggie, all though I’m sure there is a great benefit from those products. Then again, if you eat enough variety and enough quantity of fruits and veggies, you hardly need any supplements. The problem is with cold climates and with busy schedules.
Buy the book the John Berardi put out. I don’t even taste the veggies in most of the recipes but they’re there. Of course you’ll taste big chunks of broccoli in the beef and broccoli stir fry, but you can’t taste the spinach the spinach and cheese omelet.
One thing that will help is V-8 juice. This has an incrediable amount of viamins in it. Make sure you buy the “original” and not “cocktail”, anything with the cocktail word in it usually has High Fructose Corn Syrup in it and that sucks. Also, Superfood by Odwalla is like eating 8 salads at once.
I would love to drink more vegetable juice, but I cannot stand the overwhelming tomato taste in V8. Are there any blends out there with a lower tomato juice ratio? Most other veggie blends I’ve seen other than v8 are almost all fruit juice, and I’m looking strictly for veggie.
[quote]w2097 wrote:
Top Sirloin wrote:
“You CANNOT live HEALTHILY WITHOUT veggies!!! Sure you will “survive” on animal products, but you will not thrive.”
Yes you can. [/quote]
Make your argument then, if you think you are correct!!!
Um, you’d feel much better with veggies than without veggies. Trust me. I’ve gone down both road and I much prefer to include as much as veggies as I can. I can see why Berardi is a big fan of veggies (lots of them). For juicing, the slow type like omega ones are the best because it doesn’t produce high heat which destroys enzymes, etc, plus you get the fibers that you should consume anyway. I don’t do it much, just bigass salad that I consume every night. For greens food, I take it once a day usually in the morning with my protein shake and i think it helps alot. I think Berardi once said that it was like consuming 5-7 servings of veggies! The only drawback is the lack of fibers.
[quote]TopSirloin wrote:
w2097 wrote:
Top Sirloin wrote:
“You CANNOT live HEALTHILY WITHOUT veggies!!! Sure you will “survive” on animal products, but you will not thrive.”
Yes you can.
Make your argument then, if you think you are correct!!![/quote]
Well, it is possible though if you’re familiar with Price A Weston. Some actually do fine without much vegetables but they do it differently though. Like one african tribe drinks cow blood regularly and they’re very physically fit! Another is Eskimos. They live on almost purely animals (protein and fat) but they eat everything including livers, intestines, etc, the things that we don’t normally do here in USA. That makes big difference. If we all ever eat is just the meat then we’re screwed. It varies person to person based on where they came from. Remember Metabolic Typing? It helps clear up some things on why we do better on certain diets and do bad on certain diets. Here in USA, i would strongly suggest that we eat plenty of veggies because honestly, all we eat out of animals are the meat. Nothing more.
[quote]w2097 wrote:
Vegetables, although good for you, are not essential. I you eat enough animal products you’ll be fine. What I do is I buy these bags of mixed veggies that are available in any supermarket and eat a third or half a packet in one sitting any time in the day.[/quote]
This has to be a joke. Hey buddy, have you tried the “all-cheese” diet?
Honestly you should be getting most of your daily carb intake from fruits and vegetables. Have you read John Berardi’s 7-Habits article?
This type of a diet could lead to serious micronutrient deficiencies.
Why should I make any argument when I see no arguments for why vegetables ARE essential. I’m not saying they’re not good for you - they are. Hell, I eat them too. But if you eat animal products, grains, nuts and such then vegetables are not essential. There’s nothing essential in vegetables that isn’t found elsewhere.
“There’s nothing essential in vegetables that isn’t found elsewhere.”
That’s a very ignorant statement! First of all, nuts and seeds ARE plant-related, so you just reneged on your argument! I backed up my claims by explaining in part why veggies ARE vital, regardless of animal product consumption. Here’s another short list of things that fruits/veggies have that most animal products do not.
Enzymes and probiotics - digestive substances that help us breakdown the macronutrients.
Phytochemicals - typically not well known nutrients that are very important to healthy immune function.
Vitamins and minerals - most fruits/veggies have almost all of the vitamins/minerals your body needs. Very few animal products are “comprehensive” in this department.
Fiber - you need both insoluble and soluble. Without fiber, you can get impacted waste in the colon and predispose yourself to intestinal cancers. Not pretty.
So, now that I have indeed shown you proof why you NEED NOT go without your plant foods, its your turn to present a little more intelligence and facts on your opinions. If you are going to come on a forum and make statements in front of other health-minded folks, you better be willing to back your SH*T up! After all, we aren’t truck drivers looking for the best place in town to get a cheeseburger. Or, you could just not reply and we all would know what that means…