Transcript: Garden Variety Anti-Inflammation
One of the reasons some studies haven’t shown more impressive results tying disease reduction to the quantity of fruit and vegetable consumption may be because of the quality of fruit and vegetable consumption. People are more likely to eat bananas than blueberries; cucumbers instead of kale. Variety is also important though. If you eat a whole cantaloupe you would be recorded getting eight servings of fruits or vegetables. One head of iceberg lettuce makes like ten cups.
We know that whole foods are better than eating individual nutrients, for example a carrot is better than a beta carotene pill, because of what’s been called nutrient synergy where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, as many of the nutrients interact, work together, and complement one another. But what about synergy between foods?
Check this out. I’ve talked about the wonders of the spice turmeric, but the key component has very poor bioavailability. Just a tiny bit gets into your bloodstream after eating a nice curry—unless, you add some black pepper. The phytonutrient in black pepper boosts the levels of the turmeric phyonutrient 2000%! That’s why dietary diversity is so important.
Not only may the variety of fruit and vegetable consumption decrease disease risk independent from quantity of consumption, sometimes variety may be even more important. Check this out, no difference in inflammation—C-reactive protein levels—between those eating six servings of vegetables a day and those eating two servings, but those eating the more variety—even if they didn’t necessarily eat greater overall quantities—had significantly less inflammation.
This supports the American Heart Association’s latest dietary guidelines, which, for the first time, added a recommendation for also eating a variety of fruits and vegetables.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
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