Green Smoothies got me sick??

[MightySunTzu]

Greetings to all,

I have been eating healthy (including about 50% raw fruits and vegetables) for the past 6 or 7 weeks after completing a ten day water-only fast. 5 days ago (Evening of Easter Sunday) i drank my first ever "Green Smoothie". Had about 60% fruit and 40% green leafy vegetables. First night was easy as i had only romaine lettuce ready to go, something my body is very much used to... and for the smoothie meal, romaine and apples, i had about a quart/liters worth. The following day i began to make the smoothies with raw greens that my body was not used to. Each smoothie meal consisted of about a quart. I was half expecting to feel sick as my body was getting used to the unfamiliar greens, but to my surprise i didn't.

Monday morning: 60% apple or pear with 40% Kale (Kale being my hardest test as far as i was concerned). Felt fine afterwards. Monday evening: 60% apple or pear and 40% celery. Felt good.

Tuesday morning: 60% mango and 40% bok choy. felt good. Tuesday eve: 60% pineapple 40% bok choy again. felt good.

To this point i had built a confidence that my body was perfectly fine with the strong raw greens and that i was not going to have to worry about gradually exposing my body to them.

Wed am: 60% plantain/40% collard, felt good (though in hindsite it wasn't the best meal for regularity).

Now Wed eve is where it gets interesting. 60% papaya, 40% collard. Normally i feel my stomach (actual stomach, not the colon) and within an hour of sipping down the quart of smoothie, it feels empty again. On this occasion, i was still feeling pretty full after 2 hours and after 3 hours i began to have stomach pain (again, actually in the stomach). To be honest, i was quite shocked that i was feeling anything but great and began to contemplate what in the world could have happened.

Now it's 11pm, i want to lay down to sleep and my stomach is bothering me so much i can't sleep. Though i wasn't feeling nausiated, decided to get up and induce vomiting. Got to the toilet, smelled the bleach in the water and immediately purged. Stimulated a couple more purges and immediately the stomach pain was gone.

Just to complete the story, after about 10 minutes with no pain, i thought i'd "further soothe my stomach" and so i had a single rice cake... but the stomach pain returned immediately from that with a vengeance. So back to the toilet i went, but this time whatever i was able to purge out did not take away the pain. So i went to sleep with this stomach ache, tossing and turning, maybe sleeping 2 real hours. Woke up feeling weak and a little bit sick, with some stomach pain, but quite a bit better. Had water-only until about 4pm (and very little of this), then felt i could eat something... Started with a piece of mango... waited 5 minutes and felt fine, so continued to eat a whole mango, then another. Basically at this point i was fine and continued to eat throughout the evening with no issues.

The question i have is this:

Is it possible (or even likely) that my body rejected having too many heavy raw greens too soon and that 6th heavy green smoothie meal (over 3 days and 3 nights) was the point where it finally reacted?

or... was it more likely a stomach flu or food poisoning that had nothing to do with having too many of these unfamiliar strong greens?

or... some other possibility?

Thanks for your help .

[StellaBlue]

It's possible eating a bunch of blended raw greens upset your stomach. Sometimes that happens to me, and I'm not big on raw smoothies anymore. I have a hard time digesting raw kale and raw collards.

I have heard of people being fine with salads, but can not handle green smoothies at all. It is strange that you handled them fine before, though. I would say the only way to know for sure would be to try again . Maybe put less greens in just in case.

[Holistic Star]

You know papaya and collard just doesn't sound like a nice mix to me! (I like green smoothies by the way)

It might be that a collards which are from the cabbage family and therefore quite gassy and can cause bloating, with papaya which is very enzyme rich so breaks down foods it is digested with very quickly just created an explosion inside you! I'm not surprised it hurt and kept you awake.

You'd be ok eating either on their own, but they are not something I would put together. (not from any scientific viewpoint, just instinctively doesn't sound nice)

[MightySunTzu]

Originally Posted by StellaBlue

It's possible eating a bunch of blended raw greens upset your stomach. Sometimes that happens to me, and I'm not big on raw smoothies anymore. I have a hard time digesting raw kale and raw collards.

I have heard of people being fine with salads, but can not handle green smoothies at all. It is strange that you handled them fine before, though. I would say the only way to know for sure would be to try again . Maybe put less greens in just in case.

Hi Stella,

Thanks for your reply.

Yeah, i've never had an issue with various types of lettuce or raw spinach and have been eating them very comfortably for quite some time. But the "heavy" greens in raw form is brand new to my system: kale, collards, swiss chard, bok choy... To be honest eating them by themselves i feel intuitively would make me feel sick and i was very pleasantly surprised that 60% fruit could do such a great job of masking the taste and also that it didn't make me feel sick at all... at least in the first 5 1-quart-meals of them over 2.5 days. As well, it seems they digested great and quickly for me, partly assessed by feeling my stomach along the way. As mentioned before, within an hour, the first 5 seem to have passed right through.

As you say, the big surprise to me, if it was indeed the Green Smoothies that caused me to feel sick, is that i made it through the 5 smoothie meals and not until the 6th did the problem arise. I was ready to feel at least a little bit less than great after the first cup of apple/kale.

Feel great today, like nothing ever happened, and eased back in with a new concoction of grapefruit and celery. No problem with that one.

[MightySunTzu]

Hi Holistic Star,

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

You know papaya and collard just doesn't sound like a nice mix to me! (I like green smoothies by the way)

Haha, but what does sound good? All of these combinations seem horrifying to me but taste better than i anticipated

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

It might be that a collards which are from the cabbage family and therefore quite gassy and can cause bloating, with papaya which is very enzyme rich so breaks down foods it is digested with very quickly just created an explosion inside you! I'm not surprised it hurt and kept you awake. You'd be ok eating either on their own, but they are not something I would put together. (not from any scientific viewpoint, just instinctively doesn't sound nice)

Interesting possibility. In the spirit of scientific research and to test your theory i will work up the courage and try it again soon .

Would you speculate that Kale, Bok Choy and Swiss chard would be equally bad mixtures for papaya? Basically these are my Green Smoothie Greens since i love lettuces and spinach in salads and want to bring these other ultra healthy "Heavy greens" into my nutritional program by masking the flavor.

[ginkgo]

How you combined food used to be a big deal in Natural Hygiene. Now it is not but still many people have digestion problems with combining certain foods. A friend of mine and I still follow this basic principle.

Fruit is pre-digested and does not need to be digested so it passes out of the stomach in 20 minutes. Other foods take hours to digest. So I eat fruit first on an empty stomach and wait 15- 20 minutes and then eat other foods. I have been doing this for many years and it works well. I say that it is simple courtesy to not make fruit wait for hours to digest with other foods when it can be done in 20 minutes.

[Holistic Star]

Originally Posted by MightySunTzu

Hi Holistic Star,



Would you speculate that Kale, Bok Choy and Swiss chard would be equally bad mixtures for papaya? Basically these are my Green Smoothie Greens since i love lettuces and spinach in salads and want to bring these other ultra healthy "Heavy greens" into my nutritional program by masking the flavor.

I have used Kale and Bok Choy in smoothies which has been fine but not with papaya. I've not used Collards in smoothies as it's too cabbagy (is that a word) for me. I like collards used as wraps with nut / seed 'cheeses', rather than blended with fruit.

I think papaya is one of those things that you need to be careful with anyway (if I eat too much of it I get burning sensation on my lips). Papaya is probably ok blended with lighter greens like lettuce.


If you want to use heavier greens then banana, mango apple, pear generally work well on the fruit side, and tomato, cucumber and celery make a nice fresh savory smoothie. I might be wrong. I'm just saying what I would do.



Ah, just noticed that the meal before your papaya collard combo, you had plaintain collard. It could be that you just overdid the collards that day - they are very gassy as I said!

also a side note. Any green smoothie you make with pineapple, you'll have to drink straight away as pineapple breaks down greens very quickly!

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by MightySunTzu

Is it possible (or even likely) that my body rejected having too many heavy raw greens too soon and that 6th heavy green smoothie meal (over 3 days and 3 nights) was the point where it finally reacted?

or... was it more likely a stomach flu or food poisoning that had nothing to do with having too many of these unfamiliar strong greens?

or... some other possibility?

Thanks for your help .

I've had food poisoning a number of times and it's not over so quickly -- tends to feel afterwards as if the inner lining of your stomach is stripped, and usually takes 1-2 weeks before putting anything in it feels normal again. So...this doesn't sound like food poisoning to me.

Holistic Star may have hit it on what ailed you. Papaya is very gentle -- it wouldn't hurt your stomach. I believe cabbage is also gentle, but the sulfur in the kale can be an irritant -- thus the wisdom of taking high-sulfur foods with fats, such as avocado.

Am glad you're better now. Take it easy... take it slow. And just keep listening to your body. You're the only one who can be the #1 expert as to what it likes, dislikes, needs, and doesn't need.

[MightySunTzu]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

How you combined food used to be a big deal in Natural Hygiene. Now it is not but still many people have digestion problems with combining certain foods. A friend of mine and I still follow this basic principle.

Fruit is pre-digested and does not need to be digested so it passes out of the stomach in 20 minutes. Other foods take hours to digest. So I eat fruit first on an empty stomach and wait 15- 20 minutes and then eat other foods. I have been doing this for many years and it works well. I say that it is simple courtesy to not make fruit wait for hours to digest with other foods when it can be done in 20 minutes.

Hi Ginkgo,

Thanks for your reply.

I am actually a big believer in the benefits of food combining too and as such i did some research before combining fruit with kale/collard/Swiss Chard, Bok Choy and/or Celery. In fact, that was an obstacle for me until i could determine if it was ok. In my search it seems that the "eat fruit by itself and on an empty stomach and don't eat anything else until the fruit passes from your stomach" rule, something i believe in very strongly and indeed practice has one exception: "it's ok to combine fruit with green leafy vegetables". I don't know for sure but perhaps the green leafy's possess the same quality of fruits, ie: they too are perhaps predigested and spend no appreciable time in the stomach before moving into the intestines.

I'd be very interested to hear what else you have learned on this subject and i actually had a couple of other food combining questions that i'd like to ask you about.

"re: don't combine heavy proteins with heavy starches", would you say "protein powder" is considered a light protein, and is it therefore an acceptable combination with heavy starch, or no?

Would you say the protein in soy milk is a light protein and would thus combine well with cerial (if we can get past the liquids with solids issue ) ?

Thanks,

MightySunTzu

[ginkgo]

It is OK to give a little baby fruit but I think that greens may be a little difficult. Fruits can have a large water content. Like watermelon is like 98% water. The Fit for Life books have sold many millions of copies and they did not make an exception with leafy greens. Avocado is a strange fruit since it is 60% fat. Arnold Ehret taught that people should only eat fruit and leafy greens and nothing else. You can experiment and eat them seperately and together and see if there is a difference.

Food combining is no longer emphasized since they found it was more of an individual thing. So experiment. Of course pain means that something is wrong. That is what you know for sure. Food combining is about digestion and that is where it sounded like your trouble was. To me eating watermelon with greens does not sound like a great idea. Of course as far as taste, fruit is sweet and greens are not sweet.

Then there is the thing that meat eaters say that being vegetarian means you have to kill plants. But that is not true with fruit. You can eat fruit and not hurt the plant at all. The plant wants you to eat the fruit to spread its children (seeds) around. Fruitarians do not eat leafy greens. Dr Fuhrman says that humans and other primates are the only animals that can taste sweetness and also see colors. Fruit is sweet and colorful.

[MightySunTzu]

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

I have used Kale and Bok Choy in smoothies which has been fine but not with papaya. I've not used Collards in smoothies as it's too cabbagy (is that a word) for me. I like collards used as wraps with nut / seed 'cheeses', rather than blended with fruit. I think papaya is one of those things that you need to be careful with anyway (if I eat too much of it I get burning sensation on my lips). Papaya is probably ok blended with lighter greens like lettuce.

Interesting. I am going to avoid mixing papaya for a while, unless i get bold with it at some time in the future. Since i mixed collards with other fruits and didn't have an issue, i'll keep a close eye on them but keep them in the loop.

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

If you want to use heavier greens then banana, mango apple, pear generally work well on the fruit side...

These are exactly all the fruits i used successfully in my short career. And tried grapefruit/celery this morning which worked out fine.

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

Ah, just noticed that the meal before your papaya collard combo, you had plaintain collard. It could be that you just overdid the collards that day - they are very gassy as I said!

I also have to wonder if the ton of plantain (2 big ones) in the morning so slowed things up in my digestive tract as to contribute to the delayed problem. A lesser theory . But yes, collards twice in one day could have been bad. When i try them again in a couple days, i'll be sure to have it just once and see how that goes.

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

also a side note. Any green smoothie you make with pineapple, you'll have to drink straight away as pineapple breaks down greens very quickly!

I'll keep that in mind. I learned in juicing to juice and drink one cup at a time to insure maximal living enzymes... that they begin to die off after 5 minutes in the open air... and have applied that concept to blending as well, though i know they don't die off as quickly.

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

I have used Kale and Bok Choy in smoothies which has been fine but not with papaya. I've not used Collards in smoothies as it's too cabbagy (is that a word) for me."

Maybe it's just me, but all of those heavy greens seem cabbagy (is that a word? ) to me. No doubt it's a matter of personal taste, but i didn't find collards to taste any worse than kale or bok, the other two heavies i have tried. In any case it is certainly a strong suspect in this mystery, more so than kale or bok... equalled or surpassed only by the papaya.

Thanks again Holistic.

[MightySunTzu]

Hi Angela,

Originally Posted by Angela Leeds

I've had food poisoning a number of times and it's not over so quickly -- tends to feel afterwards as if the inner lining of your stomach is stripped, and usually takes 1-2 weeks before putting anything in it feels normal again. So...this doesn't sound like food poisoning to me.

Sounds great, seems we can rule out that possibility. It started Wednesday at bedtime, by Thursday morning i was doing quite a bit better and by Friday morning i felt so good it was like it never happened.

Originally Posted by Angela Leeds

Holistic Star may have hit it on what ailed you.

Indeed so, Holistic's points were very helpful.

Originally Posted by Angela Leeds

Am glad you're better now. Take it easy... take it slow. And just keep listening to your body. You're the only one who can be the #1 expert as to what it likes, dislikes, needs, and doesn't need.

Thank you and thank you. I'm paying close attention to each combination and how it makes me feel.

[MightySunTzu]

Oh i have to add too... The 2 big plantains Wednesday morning definately interfered with my regularity... Realized/remembered soon after that i should have halved the plantain and introduced another fruit along with the greens. I usually "go" 3 or more times per day, but Wednesday night and all of thursday i didn't move at all from the accidental Wednesday morning plantain feast. Friday, however, was an exceptionally good morning .

But still... i don't see that short episode of constipation creating the ache in my actual stomach, can any of you? I could see it possibly creating a belly ache in the colon (which it didn't), but not in the stomach.

[MightySunTzu]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

[SIZE="2"]It is OK to give a little baby fruit but I think that greens may be a little difficult.

Haha, am i the little baby in this analogy? Yeah i feel intuitively that fruits are easier than kale/collard/bok. Digestively i mean. Taste wise there is no comparison.

Originally Posted by ginkgo

The Fit for Life books have sold many millions of copies and they did not make an exception with leafy greens. Avocado is a strange fruit since it is 60% fat.

I have seen several sources that don't mention the exception... but if they mentioned every exception the book or article becomes quite a bit more complicated and perhaps they want to lay out the major rules and keep it simple. Avocado is a strange fruit indeed. I view it as the exception to the exception and wouldn't include it in my green smoothies at all. I wouldn't think it behaves as other fruits in the 20 minutes in the stomach sense, do you know?

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Food combining is no longer emphasized since they found it was more of an individual thing.

This is interesting. Do you have a good link for this?

Originally Posted by ginkgo

So experiment.

Yes, doing a lot of that and paying close attention. I'm actually going to keep a green smoothie log for a while documenting how each combination seems to digest and make me feel.

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Of course pain means that something is wrong. That is what you know for sure. Food combining is about digestion and that is where it sounded like your trouble was.

Seemed so to me as well. But in a purely food combining sense, 5 smoothie meals going through fantastically and the 6th one screwing me up seems to not add up. I'd be more inclined to believe that my body got to a point where it was too much collards too soon and it didn't like that. Or too much heavy greens in general. Or perhaps that the papaya/collard combination was horrifying to my stomach . You mentioned in another post about headaches that we need to be like Sherlock Holmes, which i liked . As a private detective analyzing the facts, the fruits and the greens seem to be doing fine together in general. Now 7 green smoothie meals out of 8 yielded what seemed to be excellent digestion.

On the other hand, speaking of food combining... another issue comes to mind. I had a protein vegetable meal that i finished at about 5:45pm. from about 7:00 to 7:30 i did a cardo workout which felt great (didn't seem to be part of the issue at all). 8:00 i had the fateful papaya/collard combination (oh and ginger by the way, haha). Now i have to wonder if the protein/vegetable meal had fully left my stomach before introducing the green smoothie (and if the half hour of cardio detracted from the digestive process).

Originally Posted by ginkgo

To me eating watermelon with greens does not sound like a great idea. Of course as far as taste, fruit is sweet and greens are not sweet.

In a food combining sense, melons are in a category unto themselves and shouldn't even be mixed with other fruits. I wouldn't mix them with greens either.

oh, and what is your take on protein powder and the protein in soy milk? Considered light and therefore fine to combine with heavy starch, or no? In my limited search, i have yet to find an answer.

Thanks again for your feedback.