Whether you eat sweet potatoes or carrots, papayas or oranges is important for your health, argue scientists from the UK at this year’s Experimental Biology conference in California.
Doctors and nutritionists have long argued that eating fruit and vegetables is good for your health. However, after thorough examination of the molecular properties of different species, it turned out that the beneficial effects of different species are not the same.
Researchers have found that, for example, raspberries, watercress and kale have an exceptionally high content of valuable nutrients that are helpful in preventing various diseases. As they emphasize, it is very important for health to use a varied, balanced diet, because the most famous fruits and vegetables are not necessarily the healthiest.
Researchers have studied the eating habits of the British and observed that the most popular source of beta-carotene is carrots, the source of beta-cryptoxanthin are oranges and the squeezed juice, the most frequently eaten source of zeaxanthin and lutein is spinach, and strawberries most often provide us with ellagic acid, and mustard – isothiocyanins .
Nevertheless, researchers have shown that each of these beneficial nutrients is present in greater amounts in other generally available fruits or vegetables.
For example, replacing carrots with sweet potatoes would give us twice the amount of carotene, eating papaya would provide the body 15 times more beta-cryptoxanthin than eating oranges, and kale would give us three times more zeaxanthin and lutein than spinach. Raspberries are a better source of ellagic acid than strawberries, and watercress has more isothiocyanins than mustard seeds.
Lead author Keith Randolph explains that it’s important to know what fruits and vegetables we eat and eat a varied diet. Scientists also emphasize that there is no single food that would be the best and beneficial for all body systems. (PAP)