Product description
What’s in Rawsome? Organic sprouted whole flax seed meal (Smartgrain®), organic hemp seed meal, organic sprouted whole chia seed meal (Salba®), whole food dried fruit and vegetable concentrate (apple, orange, tomato, cranberry, broccoli, carrot, shitake mushroom).
NOW Foods Rawsome uses organic sourced nutrients to provide high-value nutrition in a small serving size, without unwanted chemicals and additives. Here are the 3 food techniques that are the backbone of providing RAWSOME with its amazing nutritional value.
Sprouting, also known as germination helps concentrate nutrient levels, break down hard-to-digest food components to aid digestibility, and increases probiotics and antioxidant levels in seedlings. Sprouting turns some super foods into LIVE SUPER foods, where vitamin and mineral levels can increase up to 30 times. Increases in beneficial fibre and protein content are also seen, while both are converted into easier-to-digest forms. The proliferation of antioxidants and probiotics help protect the germinating seed, and provide wonderful nutritional benefits for humans. Seeds retain their nutritional value longer as the occurrence of rancidity is reduced. Sprouted grains are used in Rawsome to help build its overall nutrient value.
Because of the extremely high oil content in flaxseed, stability and rancidity are common concerns. Sprouting flaxseed increases the vitamin (200-400%) and mineral content. These are powerful antioxidants that protect the polyunsaturated fats from oxidation, naturally stabilizing the essential fatty acids. SmartGrain Flax is created through a patented farming technique called ingraining. Based on the traditional and present organic farm practice of using fish meal to fertilize foods, Rawsome incorporates this natural process to both stabilize and fortify our product. Through the use of a process described as ingraining, Smartgrain provides a unique solution to the challenges of oxidative rancidity specific to the unstable chemical structure of the essential OMEGA 3 fatty acids, ALA, DHA, EPA. Ingraining is achieved through various stages of the germination process, whereby the seed metabolizes the DHA and EPA from a marine source (fish oil) to becomeincluded in the cellular matrix of the seed.
Ingraining is much different than current methods of spraying or mixing fish oil onto the surface of the food or seed particle or into a finished product. Through ingraining, the DHA and EPA from marine source now have become part of the seed and plant metabolism. This receptive internalization of DHA/EPA is the key to its oxidative stability. In fact, if the seed is further developed into a leaf bearing plant, lipid analysis confirms the presence of DHA/EPA in the living plant tissue. This demonstrates for the first time the presence of DHA/EPA in the chemical structure of a living terrestrial plant. Complete OMEGA 3 in SmartGrain flax is stable for up to 18 months based on anisidine and peroxide values.
SmartGrain® - The Germination of an Idea
Dr Arun Nagpurkar has a Ph.D in Carbohydrate Chemistry from University of London, England, and a twenty year research background in biochemical sciences in Canada. While at the University of Guelph working with Dr Bruce Holub, a renowned lipid scientist with a strong interest in OMEGA 3 fatty acids in human nutrition, the concept ingraining was introduced. Dr. Nagpurkar and his colleagues wished to make the two OMEGA 3 fatty acids, DHA and EPA, normally associated with marine sources, available in every day foods. Research showed that seeds and grains when exposed to these OMEGA 3 fatty acids were actively metabolized and the EPA and DHA were transported from the seed to the leaves and stem of the plant. This opportunity to ingrain EPA and DHA in an efficient and safe manner into a variety of seeds and grains has lead to making these marine derived OMEGA 3 fatty acids available in foods not normally associated with marine EPA and DHA.
This novel, patent-protected finding was the impetuous for the creation of SmartGrain® produced exclusively by Everspring farms The importance of EPA and DHA, through good scientific research, is now well accepted for cardiovascular health, brain and neuronal development and in several other chronic human health conditions. It is especially important for children and mothers-to-be whose intake of EPA and DHA is very poor. NOW FOODS RAWSOME is the benefactor of the combination of traditional, organic farming practices with today’s scientifically studied farming and food processing techniques.
GrandFusion™ is a blend of whole food dried fruit and vegetable concentrates that provide a vast array of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients to RAWSOME. This blend combines concentrates of apple, orange, tomato, cranberry, broccoli, carrot and shitake mushroom to provide large nutrient values. The entire fruit/vegetable is used including skin and seed. The products have been slow dried and processed using a proprietary, low temperature technique that minimizes nutrient loss. This is why a teaspoon serving of RAWSOME provides almost 100% RDA levels of Vitamin D and E, and almost 50% of Vitamin C, Vitamin B1 and B6, and 35% of Vitamin A, plus all the other micronutrients and antioxidants that these powerful nutritious foods provide.
Here is why many feel it is:
There are no animal ingredients added to the Rawsome blend. It is 100% pure plant material.
The Smartgrain flax is sprouted in a hydroponic medium that includes natural, “organic approved” nutrients, including fish oil. The medium provides nutrients that include EPA, DHA, Vitamin A, etc. that are found in wild fish oil. It is important to note that Certified Organic fruit and vegetable farmers in Canada commonly use blood meal, bone meal, ash from burned animals, feather meal, fish products, and many other by-products of animals that help to reduce needless waste and reduce the global footprint of food production activities. These natural fertilizers also provide rich sources of natural nutrition, the same way that your compost pile does or the moles, mice and insects that might naturally die and decompose in the garden would do.
We are very careful not to claim that this is a Vegan product, but we feel safe in stating that RAWSOME is vegetarian, and represent the ideals of present organic farming practices.