Americans know they should eat their vegetables, but some of us don’t like vegetables. Maybe the childhood dislike springs from the days when only soggy canned vegetables came to the table.
More Top Picks Best Smart Meat Thermometers For Grilling
Maybe Mom or Dad didn’t know how to cook fresh vegetables. Maybe our fat tooth has supplanted our brain cells.
Whatever the reason, kids are mimicking adults. In a 1990-91 study of 2,000 American households by MRCA Information Services, two-thirds of the children were eating a daily average of 2.5 servings of fruits and vegetables.
That’s half the minimum recommended in the United States Agriculture Department Food Guide Pyramid, which separates fruits and vegetables into two groups.
“A lot of people find it difficult to change what they eat,” says Jackie Haven, a registered dietitian for Human Nutrition Information Service at the USDA.
Vegetables have been linked with preventing heart disease and some kinds of cancer. During summer, the peak produce season, an adult’s daily intake of vegetables and fruits combined rises to about 3 1/2 servings, according to the survey. But pyramid guidelines suggest these servings of just vegetables:
– 5 servings-active adults and teenage boys.
– 4 servings-children, teenage girls and moderately active adults.
– 3 servings-the minimum for the rest of us.
If you’re confused about serving numbers, the separate campaign called “5 A Day” may be to blame. Unlike the pyramid, 5 A Day lumps fruits and vegetables together, much like the old Basic Four did. Underwritten by produce organizations, 5 A Day has won approval of health and government organizations, which seem to think any promotion of fruits and vegetables helps improve the public health.
The 6- to 12-year-old children in the Dole-sponsored MRCA survey put orange juice at the top of the Favorite Fruits and Vegetables list, but even OJ was consumed little more than once a week on average. No. 2 was apple juice, followed by apples.
The first vegetable-mashed potatoes-appeared at No. 4; they were eaten 35 times a year. The other favorite vegetables were green beans (34 times per child annually), yellow corn (34), baked potatoes (22) and carrots (21).
If french fries had been among the choices, they would rank second behind orange juice-the average kid ate them 58 times a year.
The USDA counts fries as a vegetable, and that raises a question: Can a nutritious food be ruined by an unhealthful cooking method?
Nobody is suggesting that kids give up french fries, but a steady diet of them could put kids’ diet out of whack, especially if they are routinely eating fries instead of lower-fat vegetable dishes.
Not one cruciferous vegetable-broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are examples-made the kids’ top 10.
The pyramid is a graphic way to look at the government Dietary Guidelines introduced more than a decade ago. It shows what registered dietitians call “proportionality”-how much each group should contribute to our diet. But if we douse our vegetables with too many fatty sauces, a top-heavy pyramid may topple.
When it comes to serving sizes, the pyramid hasn’t made it easy for us.
Servings, pyramid-style, are not the same as typical portions. Neither are they consistent. For instance, one serving is a half-cup of cooked carrots, but 1 cup of iceberg lettuce. We need about twice as much tossed salad as we do more compact vegetables to make one serving.
“A serving depends on the product-that’s always a challenge,” says Molly Machamer of the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association. “A serving of raw spinach is more than a serving of broccoli.”
Machamer says many people eat more than 1 cup of raw leafy greens in a salad, yet that’s a “serving.” At the same time, people may underestimate how many servings they eat because they tend to think only of a vegetable in a little pile on the plate. The mixtures that are an integral part of many ethnic meals can complicate counting.
People trying to drop a few pounds heave a sigh when it comes to the vegetable column in their weight-loss diet plan, which typically insists you may have as many servings as you like. But variety comes into play, too, as does cooking method.
Three servings of fries a day is not optimal nutrition. “We know that the potato is the most popular vegetable,” says the USDA’s Haven. “When you get to the vegetable group, choose the ones lower in fat, the ones that aren’t fried.”
Still, three baked potatoes aren’t going to meet all our vegetable needs, either. The servings should include dark green leafy vegetables and legumes-dried peas, beans and lentils-several times a week, along with deep yellow vegetables. Legumes are also listed with the protein group, but-no cheating-they can’t be counted twice.
Some guidelines for variety:
– Eat vegetables high in vitamin A, which include broccoli, bok choy, carrots, kale, turnip greens, swiss chard, beet and mustard greens, spinach, romaine lettuce, winter squash, sweet potatoes and tomatoes.
– Because vitamin C is not stored, eat at least one C-rich selection daily. Those in the vegetable group are asparagus, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, green and red bell peppers and tomatoes.
– Eat at least one high-fiber food. All fruits and vegetables are good sources of fiber; cooked dried peas and beans and dried fruits are especially high.
– Several times a week, eat cruciferous vegetables (the cabbage family), which have anti-cancer properties. They are broccoli, brussels sprouts, bok choy, cabbage, cauliflower and greens such as mustard, turnip and beet greens, kale and swiss chard.
The pyramid, designed for healthy people over 2, doesn’t speak to people who eat no meat or dairy products. “The pyramid is for people who do eat from all the food groups. If people are leaving out any group, they should speak to a registered dietitian,” Haven says.
Is there a perfect vegetable? No. Variety and moderation are the key to the pyramid. But if you have enough money today for only one vegetable, consider the “the green-orange law” described in Dr. Gene Spiller’s “The Superpyramid Eating Program”:
“If two vegetables belong to the same group and one is white and the other has lots of green or orange or other dark colors, pick the dark-colored one. For example, in the cabbage family, the green or dark-colored broccoli and some purple-green cauliflowers are richer in nutrients than white cauliflower. Similarly, carrots, which are orange, have a greater abundance of carotenes than white root vegetables.” Consider the color of the flesh, not the peel.
Spiller outlines these reasons for eating vegetables:
Vitamin C, lacking in grains but found in fruits and vegetables, is essential to wound healing, healthy gums and resistance to infection. Beta carotene, which can be converted to vitamin A, is critical to the health of the eyes, skin and the lining of the lungs and digestive tract.
More Top Picks Kerosene Heaters
Vegetables provide potassium, which is particularly important in controlling blood pressure. Oranges, bananas, tomatoes and peppers supply plentiful potassium.
Edible green leaves always contain magnesium because it’s an essential part of chlorophyll, the pigment that colors leaves. Another good source is avocados.
Some dark leaves are also a source of calcium, though not as high as milk.
Vegetables and fruits have the antioxidants vitamin C, beta carotene and vitamin E. Vitamin C is water-soluble, while E and beta carotene are oil-soluble. “Populations with low rates of certain cancers eat diets very rich in carotenes in the form of dark green leaves and many orange or yellow fruits and vegetables. . . . It appears that antioxidants, particularly beta carotene and vitamin E, may prevent the formation or the progress of cataracts in the eye.”
Pectin, a gel-like water-soluble fiber, is abundant in fruits and vegetables but low in many grains such as wheat. The cholesterol-lowering effect of pectins has been confirmed by many researchers.
If you’re among an estimated 40 percent of Americans who are overweight, putting more vegetables into your diet can only help.
You can undo much of the good work of vegetables by topping them with high-fat sauces. Use only sparingly butter, sour cream, hollandaise sauce or mayonnaise. You can shift to lower-fat versions of products, such as “light” salad dressings, or just use less.
There is hope. According to the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, Americans are eating 17 more pounds of fresh vegetables and 12 more of fruit than they were 20 years ago.
The kinds of produce available in today’s supermarket have doubled and are now 10 percent of the food budget. But vegetables don’t have to be eaten fresh to be nutritious: Canned and frozen vegetables are also healthful, sometimes less costly (canned vegetables may be cheaper than fresh, especially purchased on special) and save time (frozen vegetables are already cleaned and the waste discarded).
VEGETABLE LASAGNA
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Yield: 6 servings
In this hearty dish, you might not even notice the noodles are missing. Just add bread or rolls and you have a meal. The recipe is adapted from “Lee Bailey’s New Orleans.”
1 medium eggplant, trimmed, thinly sliced lengthwise
4 medium onions, peeled, thinly sliced
3/4 teaspoon each: salt, white pepper
1 tablespoon minced garlic
6 medium green zucchini, trimmed, thinly sliced lengthwise
8 ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1-1 1/2 tablespoons minced parsley
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Oil bottom and sides of 10- by 8-inch gratin dish. Cover bottom with slightly overlapping eggplant slices. Top with layer of overlapping onion slices.
2. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon each of the salt and pepper and some garlic. Layer zucchini, tomatoes and again zucchini. Season again. Press with hand to compact layers. Put on another layer of tomatoes and finish with eggplant and final seasoning. Sprinkle cheese and parsley over.
3. Cover with foil; bake 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake until lightly brown, about another 15 minutes. Remove from oven; pour off excess liquid. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Nutrition information per serving: 10.2 g protein; 6 g fat; 2,312 IU vitamin A; 58.2 mg vitamin C; 250 mg calcium; 916.2 mg potassium; and 7.52 g fiber.