QUESTION:  I don’t understand chemistry, can you please explain to me in a simpler way why greens are good for me?

VICTORIA: The sunshine hits the greens and the process of photosynthesis occurs. The sunshine turns into chlorophyll which is the base molecule for any carbohydrate, that is, sugar. There is no carbohydrate in the world that did not originate from chlorophyll. Then most of the carbohydrates from the chlorophyll are split between the fruits and the roots. We all know how sweet the fruits are, and the purpose of this sweetness is to attract you and me and the rest of the fruit-loving creatures. When we eat the fruit, we help the plant to propagate their species through spreading the seeds.  That is why when the seeds are ready to be spread the fruit becomes beautifully colored and delicious.

The other large portion of the sweet carbohydrates is transferred to the roots. One would ask, why to the roots? Even though almost all roots are sweet, such as carrots, yams, potatoes, beets, jicama and others, they are not attractive. They look like hair covered with dirt and they are hidden in the ground. However, the plants go to great lengths to accumulate sugar in their roots, because the health and the mere existence of plants depends on the richness of the soil. Continue reading »

QUESTION: “Does the large amount of fruit found in green smoothies cause a problem for those fighting Candida?”

VICTORIA: In my experience I’ve noticed that those who are drinking green smoothies are having fewer complaints about Candida. I know several people who have been very sick with Candida. One of them is Elizabeth who I quote in my book ‘Green For Life.’ I have a whole testimony from her. She had a very bad case of Candida and she was completely healed from it. Another is my friend Irene from Denver who had a very terrible case of Candida and now she doesn’t have it. She said she can eat any fruits and it doesn’t bother her. What she cannot eat is any fats. She says as soon as she begins to eat any fats like olive oil, nuts or avocados, her Candida comes back.

I understand that Candida results from very low immunity, and what else can improve immunity more than good nutrition? I believe that most of us have nutritional deficiencies. It doesn’t matter where we live. This is the result of our process of civilization. In my book ’12 Steps to Raw Foods’ (and I want to emphasize that it is quite different from the previous book ‘Raw Family’, about 90% different) I describe my anthropological and historical research that humans have been eating lots of greens and predominately raw food all through history. They did occasionally eat meats, but they were eating raw foods predominately, they were not eating a lot, they ate no processed food and they constantly consumed greens. Continue reading »

Blessings to everyone for the New Year. May the next century be filled with health, happiness and green smoothies!!! Prioritizing your health by adding more greens to your diet is the perfect New Years resolution. I thought we could start 2010 by contemplating the value of leafy greens and the idea that they should be a separate food group.  Please enjoy this article from Victoria Boutenko.

I wonder how greens got classified as vegetables? Why do we call many completely different food groups, vegetables, while they look different and contain different sets of nutrients? A produce manager from a local health food store complained to me that his customers often got confused when looking for a particular ingredient among 150+ pieces of produce all gathered under the single name: vegetables. This man had worked in the produce section for more then ten years. He suggested that the produce section be divided into several different smaller groups of plant foods with specific similarities, like roots (carrots, beets, daikon, etc.) flowers (broccoli, cauliflower, artichoke, etc.) and non-sweet fruit (cucumber, zucchini, squash, tomato, etc.). Combining foods with similar nutritional values would not only help shoppers to find necessary ingredients faster, but also would help them to become familiar with more plant foods and increase their variety of vegetarian food consumption.

Obviously, people have never considered plants to be important enough to be classified properly. Even at the regular supermarket one can see that other food departments have more detailed classifications. For example, the meat department is divided into poultry, fish, and meat, which in turn is subdivided into smaller sections, like veal, ground meats, bones, sub-products. Every item is carefully categorized, specifying which part of the carcass it is from. Cheeses have their own specification. Nobody would ever classify cheese and meat together in one group like “sandwich food”, because it would be inconvenient and unclear. Yet this kind of confusion and error continually occurs in the produce section at the present time. Some errors are quite serious, to such a degree that it could cause health problems. As an example of this, placing starchy roots in the same category with tomatoes and cucumbers could prompt customers to make improper food combining choices.

Continue reading »