The idea of writing about fruits and vegetables came from reading a book recently by an interesting author, Roger M. Wilcox, who calls himself a vegephobe. The book is entitled Vegetable Free Living. An excellent writer, Mr. Wilcox, is very clever as well. He is at his best in using his arguments against vegetables and fruits and deliberately avoids touching on the multitude of scientific data that has accumulated over the years in this field. He thinks eating fruits and vegetables is one of those present day fads. He starts from the Bible to support his argument and ends with some selective quotations from others. The book, though, makes very good reading. One may not, however, agree with his reasoning.



Vegetable, as a term, was originally used for any plant, now the name for many food plants, and for their edible parts. There is no clear botanical distinction between vegetables and fruits. Most vegetables consist largely of water, making them low in calories. They are excellent sources of fiber, vitamins A and C, potassium, calcium, and iron. Legumes like dried beans, peas, and lentils are a good source of complex carbohydrates while also having high protein content. High protein, high fat diets for weight loss are the opposite of healthy eating. Plant carbohydrates with low fats are the energy sources that are normal for human metabolism. Sugar in the fruits is not “bad” since glucose is the main energy source; anything in excess is bad, though. Right nutrition is to get the right amount of nutrients at the right place at the right time.



Complete, if not superior, nutrition is possible with vegetable foods alone. Many people are unaware that vegetable foods have enough protein to maintain an athletic bodybuild. The strength for the mighty elephant comes only from the vegetable source. Even the meat eater gets his protein from plants through the animals that are consumed. Mixture of vegetables and rice would give one enough proteins. May be Vitamin B12 and D are not supplied in full measure. If one combines rice with legumes it would enhance the protein intake. Phytochemicals are the chemicals found in fruits and vegetables. It is now believed that these chemicals have the capacity to nutralise the oxidants that are produced in our body cells due to metabolism, making the cells age faster. This is the concept of anti-oxidants.





The largest study to date on this issue is the one reported in the June 19, 2001 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. This is another of the many Boston-based studies, titled The Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The subjects were 84,251 women 34 to 59 years of age followed for fourteen years, and 42,148 men ages 40 to 75 years followed for eight years. During those times, heart attacks occurred in 1,127 women and 1,063 men. Subjects were divided into five groups from lowest to highest fruit and vegetable intake. Those in the top slot had a 20 percent reduced risk of heart attack. These studies authenticated the concept that eating vegetables and fruits does reduce the incidence of many killer diseases like coronary disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and the protection is directly proportionate to the daily intake of vegetables and fruits. Tomato eating is very effective in lowering prostrate cancer incidence, may be because of the lycopene content of the tomatoes. Carotenoids are the ones that give the fruits and vegetables their colours. Darker the colour the higher the carotenoid content that protects against cancer.

People like Wilcox argue that in this advanced era of vitamin substitutes it is foolish and a retrograde step to be still eating vegetables! Supplements rarely help people; but may even harm them. Taking vitamin supplements does not definitely have the same effect as eating vegetables and fruits. Some studies did even show that eating supplements increased the risk of many of the major illnesses. Some of the other studies have given interesting results. The CDC funded study in the Oxford Elementary school in Mississippi showed the benefit of teaching children to eat vegetables and fruits. Harvard University Study that observed 100,000 people showed a 30% reduction in heart attacks and strokes in those that ate vegetables and fruits in plenty. It also showed a good effect on blood pressure especially in those that ate foods rich in potassium and low in sodium, like banana, orange and white potato.

Physicians Health Study of more than 15,220 people followed up for well over a period of twelve years and the Netherlands Study which followed 638 men and women over a 7 year period also supported the same argument. Both these studies were published in 2001 in the International Journal of Epidemiology. (2001; 30: 130-136). The Tufts Nutrition Letter in its October 2003 issue showed that eating anti-oxidant pills does not help and is not a substitute to eating fruits and vegetables. I must commend the Stanford University Community Farm concept to motivate younger generation in plant products and their benefits to health. We must catch them young, as the saying goes. The credit must go in no small measure to Professor Paul Ehrlich, the chief of biology, who has his own farm in that patch of land as a model to students, I am told.

Harvard Study of 80,000 nurses showed that those who ate fruits rich in folic acid and vitamin B6 reduced their heart attack risk by half. Folic acid is very rich in green leafy vegetables like spinach and broccoli and B6 is found in plenty in bananas and oranges. Both of them reduce the homocysteine levels to protect against heart attacks.

Eating fruits with meals is not a good idea as it increases the total calories that one takes at a given time. Taking large number of calories at a given time makes your pancreas secrete more insulin unnecessarily. Even if one is not a diabetic it is not a good idea to keep tickling the pancreas to produce repeated hyper-insulin state. Fruits must be eaten as snacks in between meals. Early morning, midmorning, mid afternoon and evening with a small fruit snack last thing as supper is a great idea. It is better to keep each intake small to moderate and never full. Lunch could be boiled or grilled vegetables without salt and fruits. It is a great meal indeed. This would be the ideal meal in a pressurized aeroplane cabin. One of the ways one could reduce, if not eliminate, jet lag altogether.

Though vegetarian meal is the ideal for mankind, I do not intend dwelling on that here as it is not the purpose of this communication. The stress here is on fruit as the main diet with vegetables. Indian vegetarian meal with vegetables, rice and fruits would be the healthiest diet. Wheat could replace rice but rice is a shade better as it contains more dietetic fibre and marginally higher levels of prolamine, a good part of food protein, despite the fact that wheat contains a small percentage of higher total protein content, weight per weight. However, the level of prolamine is much higher in rice. If one could eat boiled rice (better still would be hand pound village rice) one could get many other vitamins in their natural habitat.

Happy meals folks. Enjoy your fruits and vegetables and be happy. You have the power to be healthy. Do not have negative thoughts about food. I have heard it said, I have no reference from western journals though, that eating with the hand gives food better taste as well as higher bio-energy. Bye for now.