I must admit I have not been either to SM or to the Hollywood veggie bazaars (well, I have never been to the US!), but my shopping in and around UK for vegetables have always been a delight…of late of course you find that the fruits and vegetables in London are not as yummy and green and red and yellow as they used to be, and some people even have the imagination to blame it on Osama bin Laden, but I think it is just that the Londoners are becoming more and more synthetic…or may be I am getting too old and fussy!

Nice pictures of vegetables and fruits…makes me want to go to the market again, though it is not yet time!

Ec @ Plant Oils WWW Database

Phytochemicals are the micronutrient of this generation. It’s good to keep in mind, though, that sudies of the effect of specific nutrients on health are notoriously hard to do because it’s difficult to get accurate records of what people eat over a long period of time, unless they are living in ethnic communities with very consistent dietary traditions, in which case you run up against the confounding factor of genetics. And then, even if you find that one particular food item is correlated with some health effect, you still don’t necessarily know what in that food item is making the difference. There’s pretty solid evidence, for example, that eating cooked tomatoes and tomato products protects against prostate cancer. The speculation has been that this is due to the lycopene in tomatoes, but other lycopene-rich fruits and vegetables don’t seem to have the same effect, so it might be something else in the tomatoes.

There are plenty of good health reasons to eat vegetables. All that fiber is good for the gut and the cardiovascular system, and if you’re watching your weight, eating vegetables is the best way to fill up without getting too many calories; also, most of the water in our diets comes from food, especially vegetables.

But the main reason to eat them is that are so yummy! I think that the reason a lot of people “don’t like vegetables” is that they’ve never tasted really fresh, good quality produce. They’re used to what’s sold in supermarkets, which by and large is selected for appearance and the ability to ship and store well, not for taste.

-cvj

Oh…believe me… I do!

-cvj

I think this link will give a good introduction.

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/phytochemicals/

Basically the phytochemicals are produced by plants and largely display anti-oxidant properties. Anti-oxidants are good. They are paticularly good in fighting or making less harmful the effects of free radicals. Oxidative stress causes cell damage which in turn encourages mutation which leads to tumor development and growth.

Numerous studies have demostrated the effectiveness of phytochemicals in both inhibiting cancer growth and actually reducing the size of tumors.

So have that big multicolor fruit or vegetable salad. And be generous with the garlic (not on the fruit salad of course!) Enjoy that glass of red wine as well.

Cheers,

Elliot

-cvj

*my abbreviation for ratatouille.