Importance of Greens For Your Kids

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The cartoon character "Popeye" would swallow a whole tin of spinach and watch his biceps grow tenfold in size to the absolute delight of his nutritionally correct belle, "Olive Oil".

The beneficial effects of Fruit and Vegetables, of which there are many, are not quite as dramatic as Popeye would suggest. They are, however, quite real and tangible. Lets begin with the obvious - that Fruit and Vegetables are important sources of nutrients. This is seen in Table 1(See below) where Fruit and Vegetables contribute very significantly to the Irish adult's intake of many key nutrients, particularly vitamins and of course the antioxidant vitamins A, C and E which are believed to help reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer.

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We can also see that Fruit and Vegetables make a very significant contribution to the intake of folic acid which significantly reduces the risk of neural tube defect or spina bifida and which we now know also helps lower the risk of coronary heart disease. There are several reasonable questions which people may ask of nutritional science in regard to the benefits of Fruit and Vegetables:

• are benefits of an increased Fruit and Vegetable intake really significant or only marginally significant ?
• how do Fruit and Vegetables exert their beneficial effect?
• wouldn't I be just as well off buying vitamin pills?

Let's turn to the question ofwhether the benefits of increased Fruit and Vegetable intake are significant or just marginal. One thing is for sure: the evidence that low intakes of Fruit and Vegetables seriously contributes to disease is relentless. Tables 2 and 3 report on studies which have looked at Fruit and Vegetable intakes in relation to coronary heart disease and cancer and which have been published this year.

Table 1:

Table 2:

Table 3:

The first (Table 2) is a US study of medical doctors who had their diet examined and who were then followed for many years. Those who went on to develop heart disease were examined relative to those who did not and as Table 2 shows, the greater the intake of Fruit and Vegetables (as measured by Fruit and Vegetable fibre) the greater the protection from coronary heart disease. In effect those at the highest intake had one third less the risk of developing heart disease. The results of the second of these very recent studies is given in Table 3. This Swedish study shows that when comparing the diets of men who developed lung cancer, as opposed to individuals who had the good fortune to remain healthy, it is evident that eating adequate amounts of Fruit and Vegetables has clear health benefits and the scale of the benefit is quite substantial.

When it comes to the question of how Fruit and Vegetables exert their protective effect, there are two possibilities. One is that the benefit is coming from the vitamins. Beta-carotene, vitamin C and vitamin F are known as antioxidant vitamins because they to vitamins but may also be due to non-nutritional plant chemicals. These chemicals (God-made, not man-made) are attracting considerable interest these days because of their potential health benefits. They include quercitins, flavanoids, polyphenols, etc.

To many people, eating more Fruit and Vegetables is not on either The recent report of the Minister for Health's Nutrition Advisory Group calls first and foremost for us to increase our Fruit and Vegetable intake. Table 4 clearly shows that relative to the rest of Europe we have a long way to go.

Table 4:

Countries	Fruit (g/d)	Vegetables (g/d)	Fruit & Vegetables (g/d)
UK	62	102	164
Ireland	107	86	193
Denmark	78	129	207
Germany	103	118	221
Netherlands	128	163	291
Portugal	168	219	387
Italy	223	177	400
Spain	278	221	490