Green Vegetables: The Proven Way of Eating Well and Keeping Healthy

Adults, like children, have an ornery streak. The more you tell them to do something, the less likely they are to follow those instructions. For some years US health authorities have spent millions of dollars telling Americans that they ought to eat five portions of vegetables a day. Despite this constant nagging, only nine percent of Americans are obeying the edict and getting the recommended daily allowance – a position which is mirrored in Britain. The truth is that we respond far better to positive messages than to endless ‘thou shall nots’. This was shown in a trial carried out at Stanford University, California when a group of 120 middle-aged adults was put on one of two dietary regimes in an attempt to reduce their moderately raised cholesterol levels. The first was told cut down their intake of fatty foods, the second to eat their fill of fresh fruits and vegetables. The results showed that the patients given the freedom to enjoy their own selection of foods achieved a reduction in ‘bad’, cholesterol levels which was more than twice that achieved by the group told to restrict their intake of fats. The pursuit of health should be a pleasure not a pain; a question of taking up rather than giving up. In future we need to be far more adventurous is our choice of green foodstuffs. This was the lesson to be learnt from the Frenchman who visited London some while ago and complained that the English had only three vegetables: ‘Cabbage, cabbage and cabbage.’

For decades the term ‘health foods’ has been reserved for commercially manufactured and branded products. Now it’s beginning to be used to describe a wide variety of vegetables, which medical research have shown to have some remarkable therapeutic properties. When I was a lad, spinach was the only vegetable credited with wonder- working powers. It was said to be loaded with iron, and had to be eaten by growing youngsters to prevent them from developing iron-deficiency anaemia. This was a total myth, which arose when an analyst prepared a table showing the iron content of a variety of green vegetables. In entering the figures for spinach, he made the mistake of  positioning the decimal point one place to the right, which gave the impression that it contained ten times as much iron as every other vegetable. Today’s research, which is broader based and far more carefully scrutinised, is revealing why every age group should enjoy its greens, from athletes to expectant mums, men who want to reduce their risk of prostate cancer, ladies who want to delay the onset of facial wrinkles, and Golden Oldies who want to improve their mental faculties.

A recent study, carried out at Exeter University, has shown that athletes who drink a glass of beetroot juice every day can increase their stamina by twelve per cent. ‘We were amazed by the effects of beetroot juice on oxygen uptake,’ said the leader of the team, ‘because these effects cannot be achieved by any other known means including training.’ Elsewhere scientists have reported that women who consume three or more servings of leafy vegetables in the three months before they conceive halve their risk of having a baby of below average weight. Trials have revealed that men who eat broccoli once or twice a week can reduce their risk of developing prostate cancer by as much as forty per cent. Of particular interest to anyone concerned about their complexion, are the tests which show that tomatoes contain lycopene, a carotene pigment which helps reduce the development of age-related wrinkles. Cosmetic companies are about to launch a once-a-day Smartie sized pill containing lycopene. The snag is that the pills cost £20 for a pack of ten, which makes it far cheaper to enjoy a tastily seasoned tomato salad. Then there’s the good news from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, which demonstrates that men and women aged 50-70 who take folic acid – such as is found naturally in peas, broccoli and Brussels sprouts – have the mental ability of those almost five years their junior.

One really needs a degree in nutritional science to understand the vital role that vegetables play in health care. Thirty years ago it was so much simpler. We knew then  one of the main virtues of eating vegetables was that they provided a rich source of anti-oxidants, the naturally occurring substances needed to neutralise the free radicals which abound in the industrial environment and predispose to cancer, heart disease and wrinkled skin. Now we’re told that we should switch to eating a certain variety of purple potato, which is claimed to contain ten times the level of antioxidants found in everyday white potatoes. How do we make sense of these confusing, and sometimes improbable, facts?  The answer is simple. We should go native, and eat the widest possible variety of edible vegetables, not bothering too much about their exact composition.  We should follow the example of the Kalahari bushmen who include about seventy different vegetables in their normal diet. Given the time, we should obtain an allotment or garden plot where we can grow our own vegetables, as happened in Europe from sheer necessity during WW2. Before hostilities started, Britain was importing fifty-five million tons of food a year. When the German U-boats decimated this supply, the UK government launched a highly successful ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign. I well remember the campaign song: ‘Dig! Dig! Dig! And your muscles will grow big.’ By the war’s end Britons were producing more than a million tons of super fresh vegetables a year, and the nation’s health had never been better. So let’s start a new Dig for Victory campaign, so we can enjoy the benefits of home-grown vegetables, and the added bonus plus the bonus of added fresh air and exercise., knowing that if we end up with a surplus of beetroots and parsnips we can always turn them into delicious home made wine.

At present roughly three per cent of the UK population is wholly vegetarian, largely no doubt for humanitarian reasons. Given the recent research findings one expects this proportion will grow. Many people will become vegetable lovers, partly to improve their health, but also to benefit the environment, for it’s estimated that everyone who shuns meat and switches to a vegetarian diet cuts their CO₂ emissions by one-and-a-half tonnes a year. Somehow we’ve got to encourage children to pursue this policy. This has been achieved in Thailand, where scientists from the Mahidol University, Bangkok, found that youngsters aged four and five who regularly watched Popeye cartoons doubled their vegetable intake. Said the leader of the team: ‘We got the children planting vegetable seeds, taking part in fruit and vegetable tasting parties, cooking vegetable soup and also watching the Popeye cartoons.’ We should aim to make eating vegetables an everyday fun activity for children, maybe by telling them a few veggie jokes: like the one told by Tommy Cooper about the man who goes to see his doctor with a cucumber up his nose, a carrot in his left ear and a banana in his right ear. ‘What’s the matter with me?’ he asks the doctor. ‘You’re not eating properly,’ his doctor replied.

© Donald Norfolk 2010

www.donaldnorfolk.co.uk