Vegetables and fruits provide more nutritious content than just easily-identifiable vitamins and minerals.
As with any living thing, they are much more than their component parts, interacting with other foods and our bodies’ constituents and performing actions that are undeniably spectacular.
They just do what comes naturally and every different variety affects us in different ways.
We Don’t Eat Enough Fresh Fruits and Vegetables.
The Centers for Disease Control reported in 2010 that the vast majority of people in the United States don’t consume the recommended amounts of fresh vegetables and fruits.[1]
A balanced diet is crucial to health and fruits and vegetables should comprise most of our daily diet because of their active contributions. Not only rich in vitamins and minerals, there are enzymes, amino acids, fiber, protein, fatty acids, and other chemical factors that only produce can provide.
A twenty-year study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that weight gain in adults:
“…was inversely associated with the intake of vegetables, whole grains, fruits, nuts, and yogurt”
and
“…4-year weight change was most strongly associated with the intake of potato chips, potatoes, sugar-sweetened beverages, unprocessed red meats, and processed meats…”[2]
Like a broken record (or scratched CD), we already know that fresh foods are best for us and provide necessary nutrition. But just as you can’t dissect a living thing to any one piece that translates to its overall effect, research continues as scientists find more ways in which the food we eat affects our health. One such study in the United Kingdom (UK) found that (cruciferous) vegetables have a significant influence on the health of our digestive system.