Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => Hot Topics => Topic started by: a87.pal on December 23, 2010, 02:17:50 am
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For a long time I have been eating zero plant based food, but have gradually been reintroducing them into my diet.
I began with sourkraut/kimchi, because it was the only raw way to remove most of the toxins in plants.
However, now I have begun experimenting with cooking again.
My first intuition was that the safest plant foods are roots. There is good evidence that not only early humans, but also most omnivores have been eating roots for a long time. I happen to believe that cooking or fermenting the roots are better for allergies and digestiblity, but I'm willing to bet you could do fine eating them raw, and it may even be beneficial with things like carrots (which very few people have allergies to).
The aim of this post is to make a comprehensive list of root vegetibles and the nutritionally best ways to prepare them (to deactivate toxins, anti nutrients, etc). For the time being, I am going to exclude tubers like yams and sweet potatoes because their macro nutrient properties are so different.
From wikipedia I got these familiar foods so far:
carrot
turnip
rutabaga
daikon
celeriac (not celery)
parsnip
radish
turmeric
ginseng
ginger
garlic
onion
shallot
scallion
leek
chive
Also worth to note is the high antioxidant properties of the spices (turmeric, ginseng, and ginger) which could be beneficial to add to meals that you are forced to eat cooked. Following this reasoning, cloves (dried flowers) and cinnamon (dried bark) and maybe even oregano, might be interesting spices to include into ones diet (the three "foods" with highest antioxidant levels per gram) either in meat or as tea (a topic which may deserve its own post).
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However, now I have begun experimenting with cooking again.
I happen to believe that cooking or fermenting the roots are better for allergies and digestiblity, but I'm willing to bet you could do fine eating them raw, and it may even be beneficial with things like carrots (which very few people have allergies to).
I'm afraid that your claim re cooked roots being better for allergies has been pretty much debunked by the study Paleophil linked to, which shows that cooking actually increases the allergenicity of foods:-
http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/general-discussion/cooked-foods-more-antigenic-than-raw/
Also, while vegetables do contain some antinutrients, a number of vegetables have them in such low amounts that they have negligible effect on digestion or whatever.