OK. I do not know where this belongs, so Mods, place as you wish.
I consume a great deal of leafy greens every day. I would say perhaps a bag of spinach one day then next day another kilo of chinese broccoli ; next another half head of green cabbage followed the next day by more greens and so on.
I love the taste of bitter greens. I eat about 3-4 kilos per week when in season. Less (1-3 KG/week) when they are not so available.
My question is - is this excessive or is it OK. I also eat lots of other veggies (carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, yams, lettuce, etc).
I am not a vegetarian, I also add some chicken, a bit of lamb and rarely beef but fish 1-2 times weekly.
Can a person eat too much greens? Is too much of a “good thing” too much?
Missed the edit window - I also eat lots of beans and lentils also - so am not trying for any sort of particular diet. I just wonder if too much “iron-rich” diet is too much.
From what I understand - and I am not any kind of doctor - it is almost impossible to “overdose” on vegetables. You really have to pack tons of the stuff away for that to happen, and you aren’t near that point.
Just read Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and **In Defense of Food.
** His recommendation is to “Eat food (as opposed to food-like substances). Not too much. Mostly plants.”
So long as you are getting fat and protein somewher, I have a hard time imagining you can overdo it on the grazing.
A lot of poor people used to practically live on greens they picked and cooked with a little bacon. And beans. It sounds healthy to me, except I read somewhere too much spinach is a BAD thing, some kind of acid builds up? … When I was on the South Beach Diet, I ate tons of salad and other greens and I had so much energy I was amazed.
Hehe, I have the problem as well. The only way I know how to make them taste good is basically (1 unit veggies+1 unit butter+1 unit garlic [+1 unit cheese])
There is a genetic disease called hemochromatosis, where your body stores too much iron.
Non-heme iron (iron found in vegetables and legumes) is not absorbed as easily by the body as heme iron (iron from meat).
Women who menstruate every month generally need more iron than men or menopausal women.
Most people can get their intestines to adjust to a diet with more roughage, it just needs to be done gradually. If you try to do it too quickly, it’s painful. This may not apply if you have some sort of intestinal condition like irritable bowel, colitis, or Crohn’s disease.
IANAD, none of this is medical advice.
They’re good with a little olive oil, lots of garlic, and a few dried red chilies.
No, no, I did it gradually and kept it up for three months, and things were still… not dire, but irritating. It was such a relief to give it up. My body just does best on a daily maximum of 25 grams of fiber, rather than a minimum. Everyone’s different, right?
Greens also “break down” very easily into much less volume than what you’d think. Take one of those huge bags of raw spinach and throw it into a pan with a little water for steaming, or some olive oil for light sauteing. What started out barely fitting in the pan suddenly is clinging to the bottom and sides, and looks like maybe enough for one or two servings.
Discuss it with your doctor. They can test your blood iron level and see if it’s too high. Here are symptoms of hemochromatosis. Unfortunately, it’s mostly things that could be symptoms of lots of other things, too. It’s hereditary, so you’re at higher risk if you have relatives who have it.
As others pointed out you don’t overdose on vitamins from food, you overdose from supplements, though in theory you could if you force fed yourself.
I agree strongly with the others about fiber. Americans are woefully lacking in this important dietary supplement.
Other than some gastric distress (Remember what happened when Fred Sanford ate week old collard greens :)), if it doesn’t bother you, you’ll be OK.
Beans and lentils are very good sources of fibre and protein, but are not complete proteins, but since you eat meat that isn’t an issue. Beans and rice form a complete protein, so if you choose to cut back on meat add some rice (or similar) to your diet so that with the beans and lentils you get a complete protein.
Lentil soup is delicious so, you might want to try adding soups and stews to use your love of greens
The acid in spinach salingmind mentioned is oxalic acid. It gets metabolised to oxalates, which are excreted in urine. For people with kidney problems, oxalates can cause kidney stones. They can also contribute to gout. Most people will be fine even with high levels of oxalic acids, unless they have an underlying problem.
IANAD, and I read about it on the Internet, so take it with a big grain of salt: One of the bloggers that I follow suffered an episode of deep vein thrombosis. She was put on warfarin, which is a blood thinner (and also rat poison), as part of the treatment, and was told by the doctors to avoid leafy greens in the diet, because the vitamin K in those vegatables would interfere with the action of the medication. I have no idea if you can extrapolate this to mean excessive intake would have any effects on blood clotting for a normal individual not on taking blood thinner medication, though.
I’m not a doctor, but a good friend of mine has hemochromatosis, and he was explaining that most people basically crap out their extra iron, while hemochromatosis people have something off that causes them to retain iron.
The way he explained it was that his doctor told him that most men at least, get way more iron than we need, and we crap it out with no ill effects, but that hemochromatosis is more severe in men, due to the lack of a monthly iron loss that women get.
This thread is making me want to find some more recipes for greens. It’s the season for them, and Mr. Neville, being from North Carolina, loves them. No ham in them for us (we keep kosher), but we do sometimes cook them with a smoked turkey leg.
I’m of the ethnic background (Celtic and Scandinavian) where hemochromatosis is most common. I’m pretty sure I don’t have hemochromatosis; my doctor has told me I have anemia.
I’ve heard that it is a trait that was very helpful for people living on an iron-deficient diet. It’s not so helpful when you have access to lots of iron-rich foods, though.
I’d believe the bit about crapping out excess iron. TMI:
I take a high-potency iron supplement, on advice of my doctor, and I notice that my poo is a lot darker than usual when I’m taking it, or when I eat something iron-rich
Women tend to develop symptoms of hemochromatosis after menopause, when they’re no longer losing iron to menstruation every month.