Vegetables to Watch Out For

There’s a reason you’re told to “Eat your vegetables”, and it’s not just to put color into your cheeks. Vegetables are a fundamental part of the daily diet, ideally chosen from what is available in your area.

The vegetable kingdom provides astounding benefits. To mention just a few: vegetables cleanse the body of toxins, purify and build the blood, and improve circulation. They can treat indigestion, blood sugar imbalance, ulcers, asthma, constipation, nearsightedness, and acne. They can lower cholesterol and blood pressure, clear ear infections, increase mother’s milk, and alleviate pain. Some contain antibiotic, antimicrobial and antifungal properties. At times, vegetables are used topically, as poultices, for their healing qualities.

Raw vegetables or those grown in warmer climates have stronger cleansing properties, making them especially beneficial for those who eat animal foods. These include mushrooms, peas, cucumbers, yams, okra, peppers, summer squashes, lettuce, and the nightshades (potato, tomato, eggplant, peppers).

Root vegetables, the cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, collards, kale, rutabaga, radish, kohl rabi, mustard, horseradish, and watercress), and winter squash have milder properties. Grown in temperate-to-cold climates, they contain minerals and other elements that allow them to survive a harsh winter. Eating them helps build our own resistance to cooler weather and disease.

Onion family members – onions, scallions, chives, garlic, shallots – are considered by Eastern healing traditions too strong for daily use. Thought to “foster excessive emotional desire” and give rise to anger, they are not recommended for those seeking “mental and spiritual refinement.” Rather, they should be used more specifically for their medicinal qualities of promoting warmth and thus moving energy in the body, resolving blood stagnation, reducing clotting, and expelling coldness.

It is important to note some cautions.

Oxalic acid, found in spinach, chard, beet greens, rhubarb, cranberries, and plums, should be avoided by people with calcic disorders (e.g. arthritis, heart disease, tooth decay), as it interferes with calcium absorption.

The nightshades also remove calcium from the bones. When people with arthritis, joint pain, bursitis, and bone spurs stop eating these foods, their pain and symptoms have been shown to abate dramatically after four to six months.

If you’ve got weak digestion and watery stools, eat sparingly of cucumbers, summer squash, okra.

Too much asparagus can irritate the kidneys. Broccoli disrupts the body’s ability to use iodine; avoid it if you have thyroid deficiency and low iodine. Regular overconsumption of carrot juice may weaken the kidneys; drink no more than 4 cups daily. Lettuce is not to be eaten if eye diseases exist; excess lettuce in the diet can cause dizziness. Mustard greens are not for those with inflamed eye diseases or hemorrhoids.

Eggplant (actually a fruit) should be eaten sparingly by pregnant women; in Asia, women are advised not to eat eggplant because it can cause miscarriage.

Garlic is contraindicated in conditions involving heat: red face and eyes, feeling hot, canker sores, dry mouth, fever, night sweats. Chinese herbology claims that too much garlic damages the stomach and the liver.

Green potatoes and sprouts are toxic; be sure to remove the eye of the sprout from the potato. Vine-ripened tomatoes are best; green-picked tomatoes can weaken kidney-adrenal function.

Parsley dries up the milk of nursing mothers. Parsnip leaves are poisonous. Avoid radishes if you tend toward being cold or having low energy. Spinach, because of its sliding nature, should not be eaten by those with loose stools or urinary incontinence. Too much sweet potato will cause indigestion and bloating. Watercress can exacerbate cases of frequent urination.

So eat your vegetables, taking in their many healing benefits as well as great tastes and rich colors and textures, just know which ones to avoid when.

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