Greens & Plant Foods

Throughout most of human history, greens, vegetables and fruits have been the mainstay of our diet.  Second to none, greens and fruits have been the most abundant and available natural food in the world.  However, only 200 years ago, the Industrial Revolution that brought dramatic changes to agriculture and manufacturing, also brought extreme changes to our diet.  With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, our appetites shifted from greens and plant foods to processed foods that had more pronounced flavors and foods that were cheap to make and easy to store for long periods of time without spoiling.

No one suspected that the new processed foods were deficient in nutrients and high in calories and toxins and were responsible for new illnesses that quickly began to emerge.  Instead, everyone continued eating these new foods and attempted to cure the illnesses with medical treatments and drugs.  Today, we continue to see diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity reaching pandemic proportions and we continue to treat them with drugs and surgeries that are still not working.

New evidence is surfacing that strongly suggests a return to our original diet is the only solution to the current health crisis the world is suffering because we now know that greens and plant foods are the only food that matches our nutritional needs closer that any other food group.  Greens and plants not only contain the protein (amino acids), carbohydrates, fats, phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that we need, but they also contain everything in just the right amounts and in the highest quality.  The only nutrient they appear to lack is vitamin B12 that can be supplemented, but it should be noted that B12 is also produced by our own intestines.  Greens are truly natures’ only perfect foods and the only foods that we can trust to keep us healthy.

Think about this irrefutable fact.  All life sustaining energy comes from only one place.  It comes from our sun and it is captured and stored in an enormous blanket of dark leafy greens that cover most of the land on our planet.   The further our food is removed from dark leafy greens, the more diluted its’ nutrients become.  It is clear that dark leafy greens are natures’ perfect and most powerful food.
In her quest to discover the optimum diet for humans, Victoria Boutenko studied the eating habits of the chimpanzees because they are the closest animal to humans sharing 99.4% of our DNA.  She also discovered that chimpanzees were not only much stronger and faster than humans, but they were much healthier and had a stronger immune system. 

Chimpanzees living in the wild have a strong natural immunity to cancer, HIV, Hepatitis C and other fatal human diseases?   Why do they live very healthy lives and why aren’t they obese and cancer-ridden like humans?  They don’t take prescription medications and they don’t go to the doctor.  They don’t get vaccinated for disease.  Most important, they don’t eat what we do.  Their diet provides the answer.
The chimpanzees diet is all-natural and is totally different from our Standard American Diet.  Here is what Victoria Boutenko discovered:

Chimpanzees eat over 40% leafy greens.  The Standard American Diet is less than 3% leafy greens.  Even the typical raw food diet consists of less than 10% leafy greens.

Chimpanzees eat almost 50% fruit while humans eat less than 5% fruit.

Another stark difference is that humans eat over 60% of their diet in rice, bread, pasta, potato and processed starches while chimpanzees eat absolutely none.
Chimpanzees eat no meat or dairy.  We eat over 20%.

Chimpanzees eat their food raw or uncooked while it is still living and full of nutrients.  We cook our food with high heat that insures the death of most of the nutrients.

In summary, greens are nature’s perfect food because they are the only food group that provides not only all the essential amino acids we need for protein but also all the carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that we need and in just the right amounts and in the highest quality.  The simple and perfect amino acids they provide for protein are much easier for our body to digest than the complex proteins from animal foods.

The following 5 tables compiled by Victoria Boutenko demonstrate some of the powerful nutrients contained in greens:

ESSENTIAL MINERAL AND VITAMIN CONTENT IN KALE AND LAMBSQUARTERS

ESSENTIAL AMINO ACID CONTENT IN KALE AND LAMBSQUARTERS

NUTRITIONAL COMPARISON OF BEET ROOTS TO BEET GREENS

NUTRITIONAL COMPARISON OF PARSLEY ROOTS TO PARSLEY GREENS

NUTRITIONAL COMPARISON OF TURNIP ROOTS TO TURNIP GREENS

CONCLUSION

Greens and plants match human dietary needs closer than any other foods and there is strong evidence that they lead to a strong immune system, strong muscles and a profoundly healthier life.

There are thousands of varieties of greens and plant foods and each one has its’ own unique set of nutrients so it is important to vary them in your diet.  Spend most of your supermarket time in the produce section getting acquainted with greens and plants.  Learn as much as you can about greens and plant foods and include as much of them in your diet as possible.