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What vegetables can't be eaten raw?

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  • More about Buckwheat Greens check out this article. http://www.gillesarbour.com/buckwheatArticle.php We eat (never juice) home grown buckwheat greens with no ill effects but probably best not to juice loads of them at a time.

  • SamiliciousSamilicious Raw Newbie

    So just to be clear, yams are the orange-ish ones and sweet potatoes are the pale-coloured ones?

  • jenny2052jenny2052 Raw Newbie

    Samilicious, it’s the opposite. The orange ones are sweet potatoes (scroll through for good pictures):

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato

    The pale ones are yams:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_(vegetable)

  • SamiliciousSamilicious Raw Newbie

    Thanks Jenny! I guess my organic grocer got it backwards then. Well thats good because I’ve been eating the bright orange ones anyway thinking that they were yams!

  • rawmamarawmama Raw Newbie

    whew, that’s good because I just LOVE Yam Chips from this site!!!

  • SamiliciousSamilicious Raw Newbie

    Wait…the orange ones are the good ones right?

  • debbietookdebbietook Raw Master

    Yes.

    The pinky-red ones with the orange/cream flesh are sweet potatoes and fine (sometimes called yams in the US, although they’re not yams). They’re lovely raw (well, I think so).

    The mud-coloured ones with the pale flesh are yams. See the wikipedia links earlier. They’re the ones that gave me the bad reaction and are said by wikipedia to be poisonous raw.

  • SamiliciousSamilicious Raw Newbie

    Thnks for the second clarity. Won’t happen again as long as I know what to look for this time.

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    Yans & sweet potatoes – the orange ones are called yams here (at EVERY store and the light flesh ones sweet potatoes). I have eaten the light ones just fine; I have never tried the orange ones. My family & I have also eaten rhubarb stems raw; is it just the leaves that are poisonous? Also, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, so I don’t use it as a trusted source of information. I have never heard of rhubarb being toxic or poisonous. Any other source that talks about rhubarb?

  • What about different kinds of squash and zucchini? Can i eat those raw?

  • Yes, sure monale, there are many delicious recepies with the zucchini like zucchini pasta, or zucchini hummus. I made that yesterday and it is sooo delicious! And the squash also can be eaten raw. I love pumpkin soup.

  • alpdesignsalpdesigns Raw Newbie

    Oooh yes monale. I used both butternut and zucchini squash today in a pasta dish with ground pumpkin seeds and tomatoes on top. I also added some slaw mix to the zuke pasta. Yum!

  • has anyone ever tried to eat a raw atrichoke heart? just curious.

  • What about roots such as sunchokes, galanga, yucca, or taro? Can these be consumed raw? (and how?)

  • achin70achin70 Raw Newbie

    I love sunchokes in my salads, and they’re great in nori rolls. Good substitute for water chestnuts.

    I use galangal once in a blue moon in my salads, but I don’t have much experience with them. It’s used in a lot of SE Asian (Thai) recipes, I believe.

    Never tried yucca, but I hear raw taro is not tasty at all, and can give you a bad reaction. Needs to be cooked.

    True yams are hard to find in my part of the country, the Pacific NW, although they are found sometimes in Mexican and African groceries, cultures where they are a staple in the diet.

    And Angie’s right, the orange fleshed varieties, commonly called yams in the US, are sweet potatoes. The lighter fleshed varieties, which turn golden when cooked, are also sweet potatoes. A distinction was made between the two once upon a time, perhaps for marketing reasons. :)

  • achin70achin70 Raw Newbie

    I guess mushrooms are not really considered veggies, are they? I think they’re classified as fungi. Anyway, I’ve read they should not be consumed raw. And they’re supposed to be full of mycotoxins.

    Superfoods mushroom supplements like AgariGold, made by Waiora, might be ok, though, from what I’ve heard.

  • achin70achin70 Raw Newbie

    I was reading Jeremy Safron’s “The Raw Truth” last night, and he says taro will cause “intense mouth and throat discomfort” when eaten raw. As for yucca, aka cassava, it’s too dense and starchy to be eaten raw. :)

  • Thanks achin70 for the root tips :)~

  • achin70achin70 Raw Newbie

    chakra essence: You’re welcome! :)

  • achin70achin70 Raw Newbie

    I copied and pasted this from the Yucca Root discussion.

    Here is a link to an article on kids who were poisoned by yucca:

    www.annointed.net/Article819.html

  • mdcmdc

    I've read all you've posted and I'm still confused about what is a sweet potato versus a true yam. Are sweet potatoes "softer" than yams like white potatoes? Are they easier to peel, more like a regular potato? I see see some whitish fleshed, hard things they call yams in my local grocery, but given the confusion in terms, how would I identify it for sure? We don't have anything with orange flesh in my store. We do have a purple Okinawan sweet potato. I have enjoyed them cooked in the past; never tried them raw. And, a propos of the main point of the thread, you never want to eat raw taro or raw taro leaves. Even undercooked taro is bad. They have calcium oxalate crystals, which is kind of like vegetable fiber glass. I believe manioc (cassava) root is also poisonous when raw, or at least must be prepared in a very particular way; kind of like vegetable fugu. Anyway, thanks for sharing your insight on yams vs. sweet potatoes.

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