HEALTH AND MEDICINE

14.GREEN LEAFY VEGETABLES

1. Amaranthus Gangeticus

2. Amaranthus Tristis (Cultivated)
3. Amaranthus Tristis (Wild)
4. Amaranthus Campestris (Cultivated)
5. Amaranthus Campestris (Wild)
6. Kuppai keerai [a wild Aramanth]
7. Chicoria Endivia
8. Veronie Civerea
9. Alternanthera sessiles (cultivated)
10. Alternanthera sessiles (wild)
11. Corander leaf
12. Cabbage
13. Chenopodium
14. Chunnambu keerai
15. Chandi Keerai
16. Indian Spinach
17. Celosia Albida
18. Common India Parselane
19. Brown Indian Hemp
20. Marsh Mint
21. Vurry Leaf

Some food stuffs such as green leafy vegetables, tubers,, and root vegetables and are rich in alkali-producing elements and poor in acid-producing ones, while others, such as meat, dhals, pulses, nuts and cereal grains are rich in acid-producing ones, and poor in alkali-producing ones.

The green leaves of plants are always rich in just those minerals salts in which the seeds such grains and nuts are poor. So it is necessary when our food consists largely of such cereal grains as wheat, rice, cholam, cambu, ratgi, maize or barley, or when we eat flesh or meat, that we should also eat plentifully of the green leaves of plants.'"

The abundance of minerals and vitamins in green vegetables and the special character of protein, although present in small quantities, makes them of great value, specially as supplementary to a diet containing cereals. Just as in pastoral communities, the defects of a cereal diet may be corrected with milk and other dairy products, so under the circumstances correction may be obtained by green vegetables.

The leaf is the site of the synthesis of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats and is rich in actively functioning cells. The cells contain everything which is necessary for the metabolic processes and they supply all the nutrients which an animal requires....

So we see all the unique substances are found in excess only in leaves. As without leaves a plant cannot live, so we cannot live hale and healthy for a long time without eating leaves.

Thus everyone needs not only sattvic food, but also foods rich in organic alkaline salts, vitamins, and cellulose to eliminate disease and to improve, protect, and restore a long-lived health. Such needed food factors in sufficient quantity we can find in leafy vegetables or the leaves of herbs and greens of a sattvic type.

For this reason daily we must take more leaves than all the other food-stuffs.