Vegetables and Fruits - How to Eat, How Not to Eat…?
Vegetables and fruits are like humans, they come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colors, and styles. Just like humans, each has its own temperament. Some fruits are so sweet that you can hardly tolerate them, others are so bitter that you avoid eating them at all costs. But regardless of their individual qualities, all fruits have something that meets the body's needs, so all fruits deserve our utmost respect. Similarly, leafy vegetables also contain many nature-given properties that provide strength and energy to the body, and if they are not consumed, the body can suffer from many disorders and diseases.
Every day, various cells in the body are destroyed, but at the same time, they are also created. For this process of regeneration, the body needs vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, which are fulfilled by the consumption of these leafy vegetables and fruits.
However, these nature-given food items provide us with full benefits only when we consume them in their natural form. For example, if carrots are eaten raw, we get an adequate amount of vitamins and minerals from them, but when we cook them well in ghee or oil, most of their vitamins, minerals, and enzymes are destroyed. On the other hand, if we drink the juice of fresh and raw carrots, the natural properties contained in them give us more benefits. It is largely true that by cutting and washing leafy vegetables, their water-soluble vitamins are destroyed, and the protein contained in them becomes hard on cooking, which the body has to work hard to digest and also takes time. And sometimes, in a state of indigestion, it becomes the cause of many diseases along with putrefaction and constipation in the stomach. Therefore, as far as possible, leafy vegetables should be consumed in their natural form.
If leafy vegetables and fruits are used in the diet in their natural form instead of food cooked for a long time on fire, fried, or roasted, they are considered proven not only as an infallible treatment for common to incurable diseases that have arisen in the body but also for rejuvenating a person's body. Similarly, some fruits like grapes, strawberries, pomegranates, carrots, and blueberries are more beneficial and advantageous for health than milk. They should be consumed while they are fresh, instead of eating them when they are overripe or cooked until soft. Besides this, the juice of fresh fruits is even more beneficial, but on the other hand, most of the vitamins and minerals present in canned and bottled fruits and vegetables are destroyed at the very moment they are packed to preserve them. The rest of the remaining properties are also destroyed in cooking them with ghee, oil, and spices. If we include such nutritionless fruits and vegetables in our diet, they become indigestible and only harm the body. Therefore, the use of leafy vegetables and fruits in the diet should be such that they retain the maximum amount of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and fiber in their natural original form.
Radish, carrot, tomato, cucumber, beetroot, and turnip, etc., which are eaten as raw salad in the diet, should be cut and used for eating immediately. The natural properties contained in such vegetables that are cut and kept for a long time are not only destroyed, but their consumption is also harmful to health. In addition, as far as possible, do not eat vegetables eaten in salad by adding salt, chili-spices, etc., because excessive salt is harmful to the kidneys, and these vegetables release water due to salt, which destroys the vitamins and enzymes contained in them.
Some vegetables like okra, ridge gourd, tomato, bottle gourd, potato, sweet potato, elephant foot yam, pumpkin, and jackfruit, etc., should not be boiled too much because the vitamin C and B contained in them are destroyed. Similarly, greens like spinach, fenugreek, cabbage, carrot, chenopodium, onion, radish, and turnip, etc., should be included in the diet with their leaves because the cellulose contained in them is nutritious for the body. Similarly, along with eating the pulp of grapes, watermelon, pomegranate, orange, and sweet lime, etc., their juice is also beneficial. Fruits like banana, guava, papaya, jamun, pear, and pineapple should also be eaten without salt. Besides this, there are many such fruits that are bland or excessively sour in taste, such as muskmelon, sun melon, sweet potato, green apple, plum, loquat, and litchi, etc. Some people also eat them by adding sugar or powdered sugar on top to make them sweet, but this should never be done because this can increase the sugar level in the blood and lead to diabetes.
Such fruits should be eaten with their natural taste as far as possible because they are rich in vitamins and mineral salts. Yes, water should also not be consumed after eating raw vegetables and fruits because raw food contains an adequate amount of water, which fulfills the water requirement. If extra water is taken from above, not only does it take more time to digest, but it is also not beneficial.
Medical experts believe that it takes only three hours to digest raw fruits and vegetables. But cooked food takes twice as long to digest, and if these substances are cooked with more richness in ghee, oil, and chili-spices, then it takes four times as long to digest.
On the other hand, if the juice of leafy vegetables and fruits is taken, it is digested in just half an hour and is converted into blood with the same speed and starts flowing in the body. Therefore, doctors advise giving a diet of juice to sick people because in illness, along with the organs, the digestive system also becomes weak, due to which even boiled leafy vegetables and raw fruits cannot be digested, but their juice, which can be in the form of soup or juice, is easily digested.
Regarding diet, the views and beliefs of all physicians such as Ayurveda, Allopathy, and Unani, etc., are that a person should take a diet in which protein, vitamins, fats, mineral salts, carbohydrates, and other elements are present in a balanced proportion of calories. Therefore, to keep the body healthy, it is necessary that the food be sattvic and nutritious, and also such that its natural properties remain intact and are not destroyed in any way.