I'm new - my body led me here...

[svrn]

In my opinion, vegetables are really something you have listen to your body as to whether they're right for you or not.

I do really well with some green veggies in my life. Less inflammation, faster healing of physical injury ie cuts heal faster.

This really applies to all food, but probably to a little greater extent with veggies.

What veggies do you reccomend? Do you eat them in salads and in what amounts? I eat a bit of kim-chi and sauerkraut right now, havent ventured back into whole/fresh veggies yet.

[PaleoPhil]

Raw vegetables contain lots of antinutrients so are best avoided, well, at least the ones highest in antinutrients, anyway.

Do you mean for everyone, or just those with hypersensitive immune systems?

[TylerDurden]

Do you mean for everyone, or just those with hypersensitive immune systems?

For everyone.

[sabertooth]

For everyone.

Amen,

It may be a huge generalization, but I am beginning to believe that most vegetables may not be a necessary part of a healthy diet, at least for a large percentage of humankind.

Veggies ,in general, have always been overrated as a health food , and their supposed health benefits are mostly fabricated. I once believed otherwise and liked the idea of eating homemade sour kraut along with vegetable salads covered with olive oil.

It seemed healthy, but after months of experimenting with different kinds of cooked, fermented and raw vegetables without any improvements. I finally gave up.

I know not every one will have problems with eating vegetables as a part of an overall well balanced diet. There are some who may do just fine with eating large amounts of vegetables.

Some people seem have a mountain goats ability to handle veggies, but I believe there is only a limited health benefit from eating large amounts.  Perhaps for people who eat cooked foods along with grains there are elements within some vegetation food that can balance out the negative elements of the standard diet.

Fiber, plant sterols, anti oxidants and other compounds may be beneficial in cleaning the gut and protecting from the damage caused by the metabolizing of non paleo foods, but if you are not eating toxic foods in the first place there should be no need to eat much vegetable matter to mitigate negative reactions and so called oxidation stress or whatever nonsense the vegetable advocates profess. 

[svrn]

I cant imagine though, that paleo man didnt eat vegetables. If he was hungry and saw some wild lettuce growing wouldnt he eat it? I know it would make me less hungry. Wouldnt that be the only criteria for what paleo man chose to eat and if so, wouldnt we be adapted to it?

I know that experience always trumps theory either way and I havent experimented enough with vegetables while on this diet to say I know anything about it through experience.

[PaleoPhil]

That is the Instincto view.

[CitrusHigh]

Troll you asked what veggies I eat, pretty much anything, but I eat them instinctively not because I have any real desire to (until I start smelling them, then I get excited, motivated, but the thought of them alone does little for me), I love the taste of animal foods, the meatiness and creaminess of them. Compared to the fibrous nature of raw veggies which don't do a lot for me. But having experimented with them for a long time I know a little vegetation in my diet pays dividends. I'm especially attracted to peppers, brassicas, but preferably wilder ones like field cress, also heirloom cabbage.  Ginger is a big one, something strong in there that my body likes, garlic also occasionally.  I like foraging in the warm months for totally wild edibles like dandelion and lamb's quarters, and other wild leafy greens. I eat them while I graze our cows, or gather them when I have spare time. Where we live has wonderful biodiversity and if you took advantage of seasonal forage, you could provide your whole summer's vegetable needs just from forage.

But I know people who say just coming in to physical contact with certain common vegetable plants brings harm to their skin, so really an individual journey.

[sabertooth]

I cant imagine though, that paleo man didnt eat vegetables. If he was hungry and saw some wild lettuce growing wouldnt he eat it? I know it would make me less hungry. Wouldnt that be the only criteria for what paleo man chose to eat and if so, wouldnt we be adapted to it?

I know that experience always trumps theory either way and I havent experimented enough with vegetables while on this diet to say I know anything about it through experience.

My uncle is an experienced chief and student of anthropology, and he held the theory that hunter gatherer man would gorge themselves on animal foods after a kill, and would forage for plant foods between kills or if fresh meat wasn't available. Paleo man would eat what he could find in order to stave off hunger, but I doubt that a broccoli or lettuce patch would be his first choice.

By intermittently alternating between plant and animal foods, paleo man was able to survive environmental food shortages, and perhaps they developed certain adaptions to protect their offspring against harmfull elements in plant foods. It explains why so many people can live off of plant rich diets these days without becoming deathly ill. But that in no way proves that a diet rich in vegtible foods is in anyway the optimal diet of man. I see anecdotal evidence everyday of people grazing the store bought produce section, many of them don't look any better off than those who cruse the snack food isles.

Other issues with vegetables involve unnatural methods of production. I assume that many people on the paleo diet buy produce off of the local store shelf so you should be warned about quality issues. The soils are so depleted and contaminated that even "organic" vegetables are suspect. Even AV warns against modern toxins in organic greens. So if you are going to indulge then be cautious about the source.

My contention against vegetables is not from a dogmatically is it paleo or not stance. Its from a healing perspective, in which I have noticed that vegetables have a very limited ability to heal  and rejuvenate, and for the most part people with damaged digestion often have trouble in handling the anti nutrient content. Vegetables in general are also so void of nutrition that they fill the gut with useless fiber that does nothing for healing and rebuilding a damaged being. The anti nutrients in many vegetables cause the immune system to exhaust itself trying to mitigate the toxic substances.

My advice is that if you are strong and healthy and don't have any issues with vegetables, then thats great, go ahead and include them as a part of a well balanced paleo diet, but if you are trying to heal from serious health problems, then I suggest you use caution when including vegetables foods because of their known negative effects.

[Lynnzard]

By intermittently alternating between plant and animal foods, paleo man was able to survive environmental food shortages, and perhaps they developed certain adaptions to protect their offspring against harmfull elements in plant foods. It explains why so many people can live off of plant rich diets these days without becoming deathly ill. But that in no way proves that a diet rich in vegtible foods is in anyway the optimal diet of man. I see anecdotal evidence everyday of people grazing the store bought produce section, many of them don't look any better off than those who cruse the snack food isles.

What you say about the likelihood of gorging on meat and eating from plant sources between hunts makes a lot of sense, and it's largely what several indigenous populations do to this day. I would, however, caution against judging health based on a person's appearance alone or based on what you see them buying at any given time. That guy picking out the best kale in the farmer's market could have downed an entire king size bag of Cheetos on his drive over. 

[sabertooth]

Sometimes apearances are all we have to go on.

After many years of not only watching what people buy, but also talking with other health consious people and getting a broader perspective of what people actually do and how they live I have made many conclusions based on intuition and inspired by my observations.

This one guy Robby does a diet very close to cooked paleo, he is 25 years old and eats greens with every meal. He also eats a Lot of cooked mushrooms. He suffered from gout and kidney problems, but when I tried to explain about how the anti nutrients and cadmium levels in greens are hard on the kidneys, and that mushrooms have been known to aggravate gout, or that the cooked meat contains AGEs, he just, wouldn't take me seriously.

I have talked to farmers at the farmers market and else where who grow and eat tones of vegetables and many of them try to live healthy, but still many of the most ardent health freaks among them look less than vibrant, and many have health problems despite not eating much junk food.

I encourage people to look for signs of good health in people around them and make their own observations about what makes for good health.  Human intuition can pick up on things that much of scientific inquiry often misses completely. Such as the fact that vegetables are not healthy for many people.

[CitrusHigh]

An instructive exercise is to go to your local conventional supermarket, take note of what the people look like there, or even better your local super walmart, and then go to your local co-op if you have one. Really amazing to see the difference in appearance AND energy/aura. It's downright fascinating and really never gets old to me.

Also you can look at what people have in their carts. I'll see people at our co-ops with an entire cart of industrial foods....but don't worry, they're organic lol.

If you are really paying attention though, people's appearances are a map of their lifestyle, I learned this from animal tracking, but anyone who sits and observes can begin to notice the signs.

People who smoke have gray, lusterless skin, yellow teeth, stringy hair.

People who are obese tend to overload on carbs.

People with raging acne tend to live mostly on processed foods and high amounts of refined sugar.

Paleness is a big indicator too. People who are healthy tend to get out and get sun. Pale, pale skin in the warm months is a sign if internal emotional dis-ease. The sun is a direct-to-body supercharger and revitalizer.

Baldness tells us about how much grain someone eats.

Someone who looks horrid for their age, but has a basket full of fresh fruits and veggies can be guessed to be a vegan, who isn't getting the signal that their diet isn't providing everything their particular body needs.

All of this needs to be taken in context of course. If you are a good observer, and aware, you can totally start to profile people in a big way, almost to a creepy extent. But you need some background knowledge in health in order to connect the effects (people's appearances) with the causes. ie grains, sugar, smoking, etc.

[jessica]

haha great observations, i have worked as a cashier at a health food store for years....so many overweight unhealthy folks come through for healthy candies and chocolates, sodas and icecreams, i just wanna shake em, and the vegans........oh the chubby men and pale wifes with tofurkey dogs and soy milk ! its weird people who have the most money generally buy the healthiest foods, as if it is a luxury to have time to cook and be educated about diet '!

[svrn]

I never undertood this whole antinutrient thing, what exactly is it? Can I getsome research on the bad effects of veggies?

as far as paleness goes I am pretty much as white as people get before being called albino. One thing I noticed after some time on this diet is that while I am still just as white, my skin is a lot more pink right now looks much healthier in my opinion. I think it means that my blood is circulating better and can thus be seen through my skin more.

[svrn]

I also went through a healthy junk junk food phase. Drinking "healthy" organic sodas, organic fruit juices from concentrate, organic cookies and candies and all sorts of crap. My only rule was organic for a long time and it was just not good enough. Needless to say it caught up with me. What a pipe dream these processed organic foods are.