A Fragment from the New Edition of Green for Life


Dear Friends

While visiting Sweden and Denmark earlier this year I learned new important facts about essential fatty acids that changed my entire approach to my concept of the raw food diet. That is why I added it to the new edition of Green for Life. I encourage you to read this entire article.


© Copyright by Victoria Boutenko, www.rawfamily.org

Greens - the Original Source of Omega-3s

The important thing is not to stop questioning. -- Albert Einstein

What is one of the most striking differences between a hummingbird and a hibernating bear? Their metabolism. One moves extremely fast and the other is extremely slow, largely due to differences in the composition of fat in their bodies. According to recent scientific research on factors affecting metabolism, "the fats of high-speed animals such as the hummingbird are loaded with the omega-3 fatty acids." Contrary to that, bears have to accumulate a lot of omega-6 fatty acids in their fat before they can go into hibernation. Omega-3s and omega-6s are seemingly alike substances and are even united under one name: essential polyunsaturated fatty acids. However, there are major differences between them.

The omega-3 molecule is unique in its ability to rapidly change its shape. This exceptional flexibility of omega-3s is passed to organs that absorb it. Omega-3s thin the blood of humans and animals as well as the sap of plants. As a result of these qualities, omega-3s are utilized by the fastest functioning organs in the body. For example, omega-3s enable our hearts to beat properly, our blood to flow freely, our eyes to see, and our brains to make decisions faster and more clearly.

The omega-6 fatty acids, on the other hand, serve the opposite function: they thicken the blood of humans and animals as well as the juices of plants. Omega-6s solidify and cause inflammation of the tissues. Some scientists link an excess of omega-6s in the human diet with such conditions as heart disease, stroke, arthritis, asthma, menstrual cramps, diabetes, headaches, and tumor metastases.

After I heard for the first time about the significance of omega-3s in the human diet I began searching for more information and read everything I could possibly find on this subject. The Queen of Fats, a book written by Susan Allport in 2006, has been particularly useful to me; it contains a wealth of reference material, most of which I was able to find online and read.

According to Allport, there are numerous studies looking into the role omega-6 fats play in the promotion of certain cancers, including breast, prostate, and colon cancer and exploring the benefits of omega-3s in treating psychological disorders such as depression and postpartum depression, attention deficit disorder, and bipolar disorder. A growing number of diseases are being associated with an imbalance of the essential fats, not just heart disease, cancer, depression, immune disorders, and arthritis but also obesity and diabetes.

For many decades, nutritionists have been linking obesity to the overconsumption of foods high in fat, particularly in saturated fat. Since then, many people have been trying to reduce the percentage of fat in their diet. From 1955 to 1995 Americans reduced fat consumption from 40 percent of their total calorie intake to 35 percent. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Americans decreased their consumption of saturated fats and increased their consumption of salad and cooking oils from 9.8 pounds per person in 1955 to 35.2 pounds per person in 2000. Yet despite these efforts, during the same time period the percentage of overweight adults in the U.S. grew from 25 percent to 47 percent. Apparently we have been eating the wrong fats.

When I was a little girl in Russia in the early sixties, my mother would give me a glass bottle and send me to the store to buy vegetable oil. She told me to always ask what date the oil had been delivered before I purchased any. If the oil was more than a week old, I had to go to another store. That was how quickly the freshly pressed oil could become rancid. At home, we knew to never leave the oil in direct sunlight and to store it in a dark, cool place to help keep it fresh.

Read more of this article by clicking here...

Ratio of Omega-3s to Omega-6s in Some Foods


© Copyright by Victoria Boutenko, www.rawfamily.org

Flaxseed oil: (1 tbsp)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    7196 mg (4.2 times) more omega 3s
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    1715 mg
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/7554/2

Safflower oil: (1 tbsp)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    0 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    10073 mg (too much! Omega-6s)
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/573/2

Sesame oil: (1 tbsp)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    40.5 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    5576 mg (1138 times) more omega-6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/511/2

Olive oil: (1 tbsp)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    103 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    1318 mg (13 times) more omega-6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/509/2

Chia seeds: (1 ounce)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    4915 mg (3 times) more omega 3s
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    1620 mg
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3061/2

Flax seeds: (1 ounce)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    6388 mg (3.9 times) more omega 3s
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    1655 mg
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3163/2

Sunflower seeds: (1 cup)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    34.0 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    10602 mg (312 times)more omega 6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3076/2

Sesame seeds: (1 cup)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    541 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    30776 mg (57 times) more omega-6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3070/2

Pumpkin seeds: (1 cup)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    250 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    28571 mg (114 times) more omega-6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3066/2

Walnuts (1 cup)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    10623 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    44567 mg (4.2 times) more omega-6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3138/2

Almonds (1 cup)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    5.7 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    11462 mg (2000 times) more omega-6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3085/2

Lettuce, green leaf, raw (1 head, 360 g)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    209 mg (2.4 times) more omega-3s
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    86.4 mg
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2477/2

Spinach, raw (1 bunch, 340 g)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    469 mg (5.3 times) more omega-3s
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    88.4 mg
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2626/2

Bananas, raw (1 medium size)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    31.9 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    54.3 mg (1.7 times) more omega-6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1846/2

Strawberries, raw (100 g)
Total Omega-3 fatty acids    65.0 mg
Total Omega-6 fatty acids    90.0 mg (1.4 times) more omega-6s
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/2064/2

Green for Life 

2nd Edition




You may purchase the Green for Life here.

With Green Love,
Victoria Boutenko



J. P. Infante R. C. Kirwan,b1 and J. T. Brenna, "High levels of docosahexaenoic acid (22:6n-3)-containing phospholipids in high-frequency contraction muscles of hummingbirds and rattlesnakes," Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part B: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 130, no. 3 (October 2001):
W. E. Lands, "Please don't tell me to die faster," Inform 13 (2002):;896–897 Susan Allport, The Queen of Fats: Why Omega-3s Were Removed from the Western Diet and What We Can Do to Replace Them (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).
"The Agriculture Fact Book 2001-2002," United States Department of Agriculture. J. B. Allred, "Too much of a good thing? An overemphasis on eating low-fat foods may be contributing to the alarming increase," J Am Diet Assoc. (1995).
http://www.mindfully.org/Water/Fish-Farming-Overtake-Cattle.htm
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Phytoplankton/
Artemis P. Simopoulos., The Omega Diet: The Lifesaving Nutritional Program Based on the Diet of the Island of Crete, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1975).
"Facts from the CDC (Center for Disease Control). http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/index.htm Allport, "Queen of Fats,"
A. P. David, A. J. Hulbert, and L. H. Storlien, "Dietary Fats, Membrane Phospholipids and Obesity," The Journal of Nutrition (1993).
H. O. Bang, J. Dyerberg, A. B. Nielsen, "Plasma lipid and lipoprotein pattern in Greenlandic West-coast Eskimos," The Lancet, no. 1 (1971).
William E. M. Lands, "Fish, Omega-3 And Human Health," American Oil Chemists Society(2005).
Allport, The Queen of Fats.
Allport, The Queen of Fats.
www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/questions/omega-3/index.html
Allport, The Queen of Fats.
C. Gerson, B. Bishop,J. Shwed, and R. Stone, Healing the Gerson Way: Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases (Carmel: Totality Books, 2007). Simopoulos, The Omega Diet.
www.nutritiondata.com
Allport, The Queen of Fats.



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