This is a common perception I hear; additionally I notice that a fair amount of people take pride in sticking to salad diet and even use a great deal of discipline to stick to this diet. However, it is necessary for us to understand the bigger goal of eating food and understanding the qualities we acquire by eating different varities of foods
Let us understand the elements that are predominant in salads—more air, water and space elements. This water element present in the leaves has not undergone extensive digestion –so our body has to use its extra digestive fire to cook that water; if the digestive fire is low to begin with; digestion of that water becomes difficult and it ultimately ends up as mucous in our body or marshy area which harbours parasites. Salads also have abundant air and space elements; air element when improperly digested will only lead to bloating and gassiness but will not help build part of our body. The bright side to this is that salads will be light and make us feel light as there is more air and space elements.
We live on earth and the majority of our body is made up of earth and water elements, if the body tissues have to grow properly we have to provide it with the correct quantity of earth and water elements which are definitely heavy and might make you feel a little lethargic and dull right after eating, but this is natural when the digestion is happening.
Our body is made up of 7 tissues– plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bones, bone marrow and reproductive juices. Let us understand the qualities we obtain with different foods –if the raw material is strong enough it can pass through the digestive fire and nourish all these tissues and we feel strong; however if the raw material is not strong enough it will be hard for it to withstand after passing through the digestive fire and nourish all 7 tissues, at the most it might only nourish the first 2 tissues which is why we have a false feeling of good as we start losing weight–in reality the weight we are losing is because the tissues are being deprived of nourishment, if this persists we then start feeling tired, weak and brittleness in the bones and eventually find it hard to even conceive a child.
With my limited knowledge from allopathic dietary field I have also found out that raw salads have high amount of cellulose and human enzymes cannot break them down, they stay in the body until they get excreted–this also confirms the point that nutrition and sustenance is difficult with raw salads
Having understood the importance of the type of nourishment you get from different foods you decide what is best for the body –feeling light short term and getting flimsy and tired long term or getting substantial nourishment and long term benefits?