What kind of vegetables go good in a salad?

by Mitchell
(Eden Prairie, MN)

Mitchell's Question:

If most vegetables are not ideal for digestion (cruciferous, tubers) and should therefore be usually avoided then what do you normally throw into your big dinner salads? What do you think about onions? I know this goes against the raw food diet, but would steaming vegetables like brocolli and cauliflower aid in digesting them?

Andrew's Answer:

My salads predominate in leafy greens. A typical salad will consist of 1-3 heads of lettuce or another type of green.

To this I generally add some of the following: Tomatoes of all types, some sub acid fruit like ripe juicy peaches, a dressing, celery, fresh-picked corn, young peas and very young tender green beans (not yet possessing the issues found in mature legumes) and sweet peppers. Sometimes I might add a bit of a cruciferous vegetable like a bit of sliced broccoli or cauliflower or carrot, but I find they don't digest well so I limit my intake.

Onions are toxic for the body. The smell that emits from a person's body and breath after eating them can tip them off to this.

Heat may help break down starchy, hard to digest carbohydrates by dextrinizing them, but this occurs at the cost of denatured protein and damaged nutrients.

If you're eating vegetables for their health-giving potential, you're really shooting yourself in the foot by cooking them.

Read more about how cooking damages food here.