I received an email with some questions and I wrote back with my thoughts and my personal experience. I want to say that there's a lot of information out there and I don't admit to be an expert nutritionist. I do have a number of years in this raw food journey and certainly a lifetime on emotional eating and releasing weight and healing myself. I read a lot and I experiment. Mostly I use my intuition to help myself and it proves to be the best "doctor" I've ever had. OK, here are the questions. I'm posting it here thinking you might find it useful. I hope that you do. I'm eternally grateful to be able to do this kind of work. I'm also posting this to see if there are answers to some of the questions that I don't have information on...
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Hi there, I've just been shown your site, and it's great. I'm a raw dieter who's interested in making nut milks, but I have a few questions. Why strain out the blended nuts in a bag? What effect does that have on the protein content? Do you have any numbers on this? I'm lactating for 2 kids, and protein is a serious matter for me. Do you know the effect of adding sweeteners to the digestibility of it? If I understand food combining theory correctly, it seems that any sort of sweetener would compromise the protein digestion and be contraindicated. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, M...
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Hi there M...! Thanks for your questions! There's no reason why you can't make a nut milk and keep the pulp in it. Most people really just think of milk as milky and not thick with something to chew on. Some people just blend the nuts, water and whatever sweetener and just enjoy it that way. For some recipes, it calls for the milk and so filtering it out is good. It's a good question that you have concerning the protein. And the fat too, I'm guessing. To date, I haven't found any information on the nutritional data of separating out the fibrous parts of the nuts after filtering it out of the nut milk bag. But I'm still searching. If you find anything, please share it with me and I'll post it up. I'm also quite interested just to know... Does soaking the nuts change any of the nutritional content? Does straining out the pulp change any of the nutritional content? This I don't know. I'm sure you are getting protein with the strained nut milk, I just don't have the numbers. I know many nursing woman who add a bit of hemp or bio-fermented rice protein powders to their nut milks/smoothies if they are concerned with protein. They will add chia or other sources to get essential fatty acids. Lots of greens is very beneficial to a nursing mother. Remember, that protein doesn't make protein. Eating a varied diet full of greens and a wide variety of other foods is what is going to be most beneficial to you and your young ones. I nursed 2 kids too. Remember to have lots of water and good fats and you will feel very good while you are lactating. Some beneficial teas are great to help you too: Mother's Milk tea is incredible. Love & Tea Co (a VT company) makes a version of it that is beautiful. Digestibility with regards to the sweeteners is really a personal matter. For me, I couldn't handle honey because when I first started, I had a lot of sugar related issues. I chose dates because it seemed to work better for me in the beginning and then used agave when it came out. Others will use a bit of stevia or lucuma to sweeten. Some don't sweeten their milks at all. There's no real need to sweeten, it's really just a matter of taste. There is a lot of information on food combining and I read it all and take a lot of it with a grain of Celtic sea salt! :-) Start listening to your body. Your body has the wisdom to know what it likes and how it likes it. If you are just beginning to this way of eating, chances are, you're coming to this eating a very complex diet - complex in the sense that there's cooked foods, meats, dairy, many ingredients all at once and possibly processed foods. So in the beginning, eat what appeals to you. As you go on, your body will adjust to knowing what it likes and what it doesn't like. As you remove the addictive foods, heavy foods and hard-to-digest foods, your body will become quite happy and will willingly tell you "do more of this" and "do less of that." I hope that helps! Be gentle with yourself. Love yourself. Many blessings, Linda
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I'm adding some links on the issue of protein: • http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.htm • http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html - We sell this book, I think it is so important to read!