Eat Your Veggies
August 19th, 2008 Posted by David Lemberg
Kids don’t have that strong a relationship to vegetables. Kids will go through the motions, pushing broccoli spears and lima beans around their plate a few times, but few veggies actually reach the inside of a kid’s mouth.
And yet, we want our kids to eat vegetables on a regular basis. We want our kids to develop the habits of good nutrition. The best way to do this is to serve fresh veggies daily, and make sure WE eat all the vegetables on our plates!
Why bother? It turns out that vegetables - all kinds of vegetables - contain super-powerful ingredients that help keep us healthy and help us ward off a wide range of serious illnesses.1,2 These magical substances - phytochemicals - give fruits and vegetables their big nutritional kick!
“Phyto” is Greek for “plant”. Brightly colored fruits and vegetables contain the most nutrients and the most phytochemicals.
Well-known phytochemicals include lycopene, found in tomatoes; isoflavones, found in soy; and flavonoids, found in fruits such as blueberries and cranberries.3 Phytochemicals have wide-ranging effects - some are antioxidants, others stimulate enzyme activity, and others have hormonal action. All phytochemicals act to enhance health and well-being and human performance.
Antioxidants provide significant protection for your body’s cells against the destructive oxidation potential of free radicals. Free radicals are produced by normal metabolic activities, and they are neutralized by antioxidants which we obtain in a well-balanced diet.
But if we’re not consuming our daily requirement of fruits and vegetables, our reserves of antioxidants are decreased, and free radicals can destroy cells and create disease. For example, certain types of cancer are linked to free radical damage.
Bottom line - broccoli spears are much more than flowery green things your Mom used to make you eat. Broccoli is a superfood, rich in antioxidants and rich in cancer-fighting ability.
Carrots - another superfood- are rich in beta-carotene, an important antioxidant. Your body converts a portion of beta-carotene into Vitamin A, which helps strengthen the immune system and protects the digestive tract.
Tomatoes round out the list of the top three super-veggies. Tomatoes are rich in lycopene - a potent antioxidant. Lycopenes give tomatoes their rich, red color. These phytochemicals have proven health benefits in the areas of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and osteoporosis.
Eating vegetables daily provides so much benefit for people of all ages. Five to nine portions of fruits and vegetables are recommended in a balanced nutritional program.
Eating our veggies helps all of us achieve total lifetime fitness.
1Hayes JD, et al: The cancer chemopreventive actions of phytochemicals derived from glucosinolates. Eur J Nutr 47(Suppl 2):73-88, 2008
2Nair S, et al: Natural dietary anti-cancer chemopreventive compounds: redox-mediated differential signaling mechanisms in cytoprotection of normal cells versus cytotoxicity in tumor cells. Acta Pharmacol Sin 28(4):459-472, 2007
3Vinson JA, et al: Cranberries and cranberry products: Powerful in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo sources of antioxidants. J Agric Food Chem June 2008 (in press)
2 Responses to “Eat Your Veggies”
Nice Site layout for your blog. I am looking forward to reading more from you.
Tom Humes
By Tom Humes on Aug 19, 2008
There is no doubt that the foundation of a healthy diet and weight control is the significant consumption of vegetables and fruit. Unfortunately, many adults do not like these fine foods - so we must make sure kids don’t develop these attitudes. That’s why I wrote “The ABC’s of Fruits & Vegetables and Beyond.” I hope parents and teachers interested in getting kids to develop friendly feelings towards fruits and vegetables should take a look at it. Out only a few months and already being bought in quantity for class use. I wrote it for kids of different ages as it is two books in one – children first learn their alphabet through produce poems and then go on to more mature activities. It is coauthored by best-selling food writer David Goldbeck (me) and Jim Henson writer Steve Charney. HealthyHighways.com
By David Goldbeck on Aug 19, 2008