Why are fresh fruits and vegetables so important to heart and general health?

Preserving, by just cooking or canning destroys many of the nutrients. Add to that artificial, man made, unhealthy ingredients.  These prevent spoilage, help color, appeal, enhance taste (MSG) but you have a chronic inflammatory process brewing in your body.

Inflammation is the mother of all degenerative disease, especially heart disease and atherosclerosis. There is oxidative damage from free radicals.  Free radicals are normal; they are a by-product of your biochemistry.  The problem develops when we overwhelm the system with more free radicals than the anti oxidants that quell inflammation and defend against free radical damages.

Certain vitamins are anti oxidants.  Vitamins A, C, and E are especially good; but they are not enough. Fruits and vegetable have other beneficial ingredients that are anti inflammatory.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are excellent sources of enzymes, catalysts and important flavonoids.  What are flavonoids?

Flavonoids are some 4,000 anti oxidants that fight inflammation and are responsible for the color in fresh fruits and vegetables. Have you noticed how so many fruits and vegetables lose much of their color with cooking?  This represents degradation of the flavonoids.

In addition, there are catalysts, co-enzymes and minerals that we don’t even know what they do.  They certainly must provide good minerals and other organic compounds that enhance nutrient assimilation.  Not all have found our discovery.

We do know that good studies show in study after study that high vegetable diets reduce cancer, cardiovascular  and other degenerative diseases. What are some examples of these studies?

A rather large, long term, study was done at Harvard University.  It found a reduction of 30% to &70% of various cancers in those who consumed 3 to 5 servings of fruits or vegetables daily. The most effective vegetables were the cruciform…cabbage, broccoli, Brussels’s sprouts, Kale.

A report done at Iowa State University found people consuming only one and a half servings of fruits and vegetables had a 500% lower risk for cataracts.  (Schafer, Nelson, et al, March 2001)

Dark green leafy vegetables, in a study followed by the American Journal of Nutrition, found they counteracted the oxidative damage of free radicals. (Brown, et al…reported in 1999)

Neurosurgeon, author and researcher, Russell Blaylock reports as much as 80% of our population is deficient in magnesium. It is found in high concentration in green vegetables.  It is a core atom found in the chlorophyll of green plants.

Chlorophyll has a remarkably near identical structure to our hemoglobin molecule. The biggest difference is the central atom of hemoglobin is iron in mammals; whereas the central atom of chlorophyll is magnesium in plants.   The “life blood” of plants is almost like our “life blood”, hemoglobin.

The fiber content of fruits and vegetables also has value in removing toxins and waste products. Numerous studies involving colon cancer point to this fact.  Fruits and vegetables are an excellent source of fiber.

An easy rule of thumb to follow in getting a healthy diet is to stop eating man adulterated food, avoid packaged and prepared food.  This includes margarine and limiting shortening and trans fat food.  The trans fats sabotage essential omega fatty acids, increase weight gain, and propel inflammation. French fries and chips are among the worst offenders. Trans fats are banned in New York city restaurants and are partially banned in California.

Those who follow medical research usually agree that degenerative diseases (and heart disease is # 1) are best thwarted with whole natural foods with an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables. This diet is effective because it reduces oxidative, free radical damage that propels the disease process…Denis Van Loan D.D.S.

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