CHAPTER 14:
VEGETABLES AND FRUITS
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“I have more allergies to more things than anyone I have ever met. In addition to nearly every form of pollen, corn, soy, and wheat, I have oral allergies to nearly all raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts. When I eat them, my mouth, head, and throat get unbearably itchy. If I continue to eat them, hello anaphylactic shock! During the Whole30, my selection of safe raw fruits and veggies expanded exponentially. I went from lettuce being the only safe thing, to eating apples, oranges, all manner of berries, carrots, peppers, hazelnuts, spinach, cabbage, and so on. After not being able to have them for years, I am downright rabid with excitement.”
—Kim C., Helena, Montana
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We’ve got some breaking news for you here—truly shocking information. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Here goes …
Vegetables are good for you.
That’s right—vegetables really do make you healthier! First, vegetables are a nutrient-dense source of carbohydrate. Yes, we know, you don’t actually need carbohydrate to survive, but most folks feel their best with enough carbohydrate in their diets to support brain function and activity levels. Choosing vegetables as your primary source of carbs is a great way to get all the energy you need in a micronutrient-dense package.
In addition, vegetables are distinctly anti-inflammatory. That’s right, a diet rich in vegetables can actually help you battle our old arch nemesis, systemic inflammation, and reduce your risk for lifestyle-related disorders—stroke, coronary heart disease, and certain types of cancer.
Vegetables (and fruit, which we’ll get to soon) are a rich source of many nutrients and active compounds. Their benefits can’t be explained by a single component, like their vitamin C or fiber content. However, their anti-inflammatory properties are often attributed to the fact that vegetables provide the richest source of antioxidants, which prevent or reverse damage caused by excess free radicals.*
So how does our free radical balance get unbalanced?
Some free radical production is instigated by external sources, like pollution, smoking, radiation, and exposure to sunlight. Others can be created from our food, particularly when we consume certain types of fats—remember the seed oils chapter? Free radicals are also normal metabolic byproducts: they’re produced when our immune system is fired up (like when we get an infection or fight off a cold), when we eat too much, or during strenuous exercise.
Remember, an overabundance of free radicals in the body can damage cells and your DNA, and are profoundly inflammatory. But we have a natural way of keeping our free radicals in balance—antioxidants. These substances both prevent free radicals from pinballing around in the body damaging healthy cells and, after the free radicals have come and gone, repair the damage they’ve done in our bodies.
However, when antioxidants perform these duties, they sacrifice themselves in the process (how gallant!). Therefore, even though the body produces its own antioxidants, we must continue to replenish our antioxidant stores through the food we eat—especially if there are variables (like illness, pollution, an aggressive exercise routine, or a less-than-healthy diet) that keep pumping more free radicals into our system.
Vegetables and fruits have the highest natural concentration of antioxidants—things we bet you’ve heard of, like vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta-carotene—so it makes sense that a diet rich in these noble martyrs would help us fight free radicals and reduce systemic inflammation.
But remember, food is complex, and vegetables aren’t just antioxidants. You cannot attribute the benefits gained from eating certain foods to one particular nutrient, even if that nutrient is kind of a big deal. (Remember the “I eat whole grains for fiber” argument?)
People don’t eat nutrients, they eat food.
And like all real food, vegetables aren’t just antioxidants, but an assortment of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, fiber, and compounds that we have yet to even identify, never mind figure out how they work in our bodies.
The good news? You don’t need to understand the complexity of your vegetables to reap the benefits from eating them. Whew.
EAT YOUR VEGGIES
All this is to say: Eat your vegetables! Eat a wide variety of vegetables daily to ensure a wide range of micronutrients, and make sure you’re including some of the most nutrient-dense options with each meal for maximum benefit.
Below is a list of our vegetable Top 20—the ones we recommend that you keep in regular rotation.
Eat these often!
Asparagus Carrots Spinach
Beets Cauliflower Sweet Potato
Bell Peppers Greens (Beet, Collard, Mustard, Turnip) Swiss Chard
Bok Choy Kale Tomato
Broccoli, Broccolini Lettuce (Bibb, Boston, Butter, Red) Watercress
Brussels Sprouts Onions, Shallots, Leeks, Garlic Winter Squashes
We’ll point out that some things you might normally spot in the produce section aren’t on our Good Food list. Corn is botanically a grain, while green peas and lima beans are the seeds of legumes, so these “vegetables” are not in our general recommendations. You’ll also notice white potatoes are missing too. Americans eat a lot of white potatoes—and more than a third are in the form of fries or potato chips. Keeping these familiar foods in your diet makes you more likely to return to your old, unhealthy food habits, and since there are far more nutrient-dense choices available, take a pass on white potatoes, please.
AREN’T THOSE LEGUMES?
However, you will find green beans, snow peas, and sugar-snap peas on our shopping list, despite the fact that they are botanically legumes. Confused? Let us explain. Potentially disruptive compounds are found in the seeds of legumes—but green beans, snow peas, and sugar-snap peas are an immature seed wrapped in a big, green plant pod. Since what you’re eating is mostly pod (not seed), we don’t think these three legumes have the same issues as the others. Besides … if green beans are the worst thing in your diet, you’re doing OK.
Finally, an all-too-common refrain from clients, readers, and workshop attendees is, “But I don’t like vegetables!” You want to know what we tell them?
We don’t care.
We say it nicely, of course. See, it doesn’t matter if you don’t like vegetables, because we’re all grown-ups, and sometimes, grown-ups have to do things they don’t like to do. Like mow the lawn. Or pay bills. Or eat vegetables. If there were a way to be optimally healthy without vegetables, we’d tell you. Really. But there isn’t, so it’s now up to you to figure out a way to get them on your plate (and into your belly).
Most aversion to vegetables is a result of three factors: One, you’ve been eating so many sugary, salty, fatty processed foods that you simply cannot appreciate the natural flavors of fresh vegetables. But the good news is that you’re not eating that stuff anymore, and taste buds are quick to adjust. In just a matter of weeks, you’ll be experiencing new and delicious flavors in your healthy foods, and that will make it easier to start truly enjoying your veggies.
Two, most folks are stuck in a major vegetable rut, relying on just a few familiar choices and avoiding everything else. No wonder you’re bored with your veggies! It’s time to go out on a limb and try something new. Visit your local farmers’ market and ask the farmers what they do with kale, kohlrabi, or leeks. Commit to trying one new vegetable a week. Buy a share in a CSA (community-supported agriculture program), ensuring seasonal variety and delicious, fresh flavors. It’s time to step out of your comfort zone, because we bet you’ll find vegetable options you love if you just make the effort to try something new.
Third, many of us don’t like certain vegetables because of the way they were served to us as a kid. No offense to our moms, but they didn’t always go out of their way to make our vegetables delicious and exciting. So … give your greens another chance. Try different cooking techniques, experiment with herbs and spices, or find a new recipe that features the vegetable. Your taste in fashion has changed in the last ten or twenty years, so why not your taste in vegetables?
ANY WAY YOU LIKE ’EM
We don’t really care how you purchase and prepare your veggies (fresh, frozen, cooked, or raw)—only that you’re eating them.* But we suggest that you make raw fermented vegetables, like sauerkraut and kimchi, a priority. They provide a rich source of nutrition and digestion-enhancing enzymes. The fermentation process also provides natural probiotics, helping the intestinal tract maintain a healthy balance of bacteria by increasing the “good guys.” We recommend including these fermented veggies in your diet a few times a week. (And see Chapter 22 for details about probiotics.)
FRUIT
The next category of food we think makes you more healthy is fruit. The positive attributes of fruit, another nutrient-dense source of carbohydrate, are remarkably similar to those of vegetables, with just a few special caveats. First, the pluses.
Like vegetables, fruits are a carbohydrate source loaded with vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and fiber. In addition, diets rich in fruit and compounds found in fruit (like vitamin C) have been associated with a reduced risk of systemic inflammation and related conditions and diseases. (Remember, fruit is real food—a complex makeup of health-promoting substances!) In addition, fruit provides your taste buds with natural sweetness in a much healthier (and nutrient-packed) form than the supernormal sweetness of candy, cookies, or cake.
VEGETABLES WIN
We have one important piece of advice in this section: Don’t let fruits push vegetables off your plate just because they are more fun to eat. While fruits are certainly nutrient-dense and yummy, they are not as nutritious as vegetables. In addition, if you don’t particularly like fruit, you don’t have to eat any! We don’t know of a single micronutrient found in fruit that you can’t also find in vegetables. (Translation: Veggies are mandatory; fruit is optional.)
Much as with vegetables, we’d encourage you to eat a wide variety of fruits (especially when they’re in season). Refer to our chart for a list of our fruit Top 10—eat these on a regular basis to ensure you are getting the widest array of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients.
Best fruit choices
Apricots Kiwi
Blackberries Melons
Blueberries Plums
Cherries Strawberries
Grapefruit Raspberries
GO ORGANIC … SOMETIMES
You don’t have to buy organic produce, but we do think there are major benefits to going organic. Certified organic vegetables and fruits are produced without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or artificial food additives. They are generally regarded as more nutrient-dense and environmentally safe than their non-organic counterparts.
However, it’s not always essential that you purchase organic produce. By shopping smart, you can effectively minimize your exposure to toxins, even if you’re not buying organic.
THE DIRTY DOZEN
The Environmental Working Group issues an annual “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce,” detailing the “dirtiest” (most contaminated with pesticide residue) and “cleanest” (least contaminated) produce items. If you’re on a tight budget, purchase organic for the dirtiest of the dirty and conventional for the rest. For items that aren’t on either list, do the best you can, given the produce available and your budget. (For the full list from the Environmental Working Group, visit http://ewg.org/foodnews.)
If this approach seems too complicated, follow this general rule of thumb: If the item of produce has an inedible skin, or you’re going to peel it before you eat it, it’s less important to buy organic; if you can’t peel it (like lettuce or grapes), consider spending the extra money for organic.
And keep in mind that not every farmer goes through the rigorous and expensive process of earning a USDA “Certified Organic” designation. Many smaller farming operations are dedicated to organic and biodynamic farming practices but can’t market their products as “certified organic.” When shopping at a farmers’ market or your local health-food store, don’t hesitate to ask how the food was grown. Labels that clearly state “pesticide-free” or “herbicide-free” are another indication that the produce was grown with environmental and health factors in mind.
HOW SWEET IT IS
Like all food, fruit is a complex combination of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, fiber, and many other compounds that scientists have yet to identify. Fruit also contains natural sugars (glucose and fructose) and starches in various proportions and amounts. As fruit ripens, the starch in the fleshy part of it is converted to sugar, which makes it taste sweeter.
Fructose is the sweetest of all naturally occurring carbohydrates—almost twice as sweet as sucrose. You consume fructose in a variety of sources, including table sugar (sucrose), honey, fruits, some vegetables, and in processed foods and drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.
Fructose is different from other simple sugars in the way it’s processed in the body. Virtually every cell in the body can use glucose for energy, but after being absorbed from your small intestine, most fructose is sent straight to the liver, where it is metabolized and either stored as energy (liver glycogen) or converted into triglycerides (fat) and dumped into the bloodstream.
SOUND FAMILIAR?
Want to know what else is processed by the liver and (when overconsumed) promotes liver damage, accumulation of fat, and other metabolic consequences? Alcohol! That’s right, the ethanol in alcohol is metabolized through the liver using pathways similar to those used by fructose. Which means that those strawberry daiquiris are putting even more of a burden on your liver than you might have imagined.
The effects of a diet too high in fructose are decidedly not good and may include liver damage, inflammation, atherosclerosis, free-radical damage, and an increased risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and obesity. In fact, many studies show that diets high in fructose play a key role in metabolic syndrome.
But let’s be clear—eating a few servings of fruit a day (as part of an otherwise healthy diet) is not going to create these conditions. Nobody ever became metabolically deranged from eating fruit! The trouble comes when folks consume more fructose from processed foods than they could ever get from natural sources.
Most fructose in the American diet doesn’t come from fresh fruit but from the high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or sucrose (a form of sugar that is 50 percent fructose) found in high concentration in soda and fruit-flavored drinks. As one example, a twenty-ounce soda contains about thirty-six grams of fructose. That’s the equivalent of eating five bananas, nine cups of strawberries, or ninety cherries! Combine our soda and processed-beverage intake with our overconsumption of processed foods (many of which are also sweetened with HFCS), and you’ve got a recipe for massive intakes of fructose, the likes of which you could never consume from real food.
The takeaway?
You will not create metabolic issues by eating fresh fruit as part of a healthy diet.
Just because fruit tastes sweet doesn’t mean it’s an unhealthy choice, and just because diets high in fructose cause problems doesn’t mean you should abstain from eating fruit. Remember, just as whole grains are not just fiber, fruit isn’t just fructose! The naturally occurring sugars found in fruit are wrapped in a nutrient-dense package—unlike the fructose you’ll find in a soft drink or breakfast pastry.
TALKING SWEET
High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the most common sweetener in processed foods and beverages, in large part because of how cheap it is to produce. You probably expect us to say that HFCS is the devil—but we don’t think HFCS is any worse than any other form of added sweetener. Why? Because they all make you less healthy! Doesn’t matter if it comes from corn, beets, cane, or a tree—from a psychological perspective, sugar is sugar is sugar. (Of course, not everyone agrees with this perspective—some studies do show that consuming HFCS leads to significantly more weight gain and higher triglycerides than consuming table sugar.) However, we will set the record straight on one thing: While HFCS may start out as corn, even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that HFCS is not a “natural sugar.” Nice try, Corn Refiners Association.
There is one potential issue with fruit consumption. Because of the natural sweetness of fruit (especially in fruit juice and dried fruit, which concentrate the sugar), fruit may promote an unhealthy psychological response, especially in folks still battling their sugar dragons. We’ve seen many people use fruit to prop up their sugar cravings, telling themselves it’s OK because fruit is “natural” and healthy. The scenario often looks like this:
It’s 3:00 on a Thursday afternoon. You’re at work, and you’re hungry, cranky, and tired. You’d normally reach for a Snickers bar, a muffin, or some Oreos right about now, but you’re trying to eat healthier and you know those are poor choices. So instead, you eat a dried fruit and nut bar.
There is just one problem with this situation.
Your brain doesn’t know the difference.
As you learned in Chapter 4, your brain doesn’t immediately differentiate between “healthy” sugar like dried fruit and “bad” sugar like a Snickers bar. The only thing your brain knows is, “I craved sugar and I got sugar.” That’s right, the message you just sent to your brain is, “I craved, I satisfied that craving, and I feel better now.”
Sound familiar? This is the same unhealthy pattern we described in the situation with the cookie from the downtown bakery. Except this time, your sugar of choice is “natural” and “healthy,” so you don’t even realize you are a slave to the same unhealthy habit … but we do. So we’ll warn you about this up front and, in later chapters, detail our recommendations for when and how to include fruit in your diet in a way that feels healthy and satisfying (but doesn’t send you running for the nearest bag of candy).
DITCH THE JUICER
One final word of advice: Skip the juice, even if you make it yourself. First, liquid calories aren’t as satiating as real food, and as we’ve learned, less satiety equals eating more. Second, when you juice fruit, you’re removing all of the fiber, which would normally slow the absorption of the sugar in whole fruit. More sugar in your bloodstream faster is not a good thing when you’re still struggling with leptin and insulin resistance. Finally, many of the naturally occurring nutrients are lost during processing, pasteurization, and storage. Manufacturers compensate for this by adding nutrients back to the juice after the fact—but eating vitamin-enriched foods does not provide the same benefits as eating the whole, unprocessed food. Just eat the fruit.