Fruits and Vegetables--Focus and Variety

My girl is not a big fan of salad, even when drowning in Ranch dressing.  But she does eat some veggies like broccoli with a sprinkling Parmesan cheese or peas.  And she likes a long, long list of fruits.  I try to take a long view, hoping that repeated exposure to new foods means someday she will dive into coleslaw or sauté zucchini.  But should I worry about her veggie-lite lifestyle?  And how much should she (and me) be ideally eating?

A good place to start with fruits and vegetables is MyPlate's recommendation.  Their graphic depicts half of your plate filled with fruits and vegetables.  This recommendation stems from data that diets rich in fruits and vegetables lower the risk of some cancers and decrease the likelihood of developing diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.  Additionally, fruits and vegetables are nutrient-rich low-caloric density foods which helps you maintain an appropriate weight.  While fruits & vegetables provide needed energy in the form of carbohydrates, they also are good sources of a variety of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and numerous phytochemicals. 

But the recommendation only tells part of the story and sparks many questions:

--My Plate suggests to "focus on fruits. vary your veggies".  Why are these recommendations important?

--What does "half a plate" look like for practical, daily eating?
 
--Both the My Plate graphic and Harvard's Healthy Eating Plate suggest more veggies than fruit.  But what is a mom to do with a kid who hasn't yet developed a fondness for salad?

 

"focus on fruits.  vary your veggies."

I appreciate the desire for alliteration, but the recommendation should really be "vary your veggies AND your fruit."  Whether fruit or vegetable, each kind of produce offers a different profile of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.  So while a red bell pepper is a great source for vitamin C  (anti-oxidant and important for collagen formation), you want to consider some dark leafy greens, like spinach, as they are amazing sources per weight of vitamins like K, E, & A. 



A Rainbow of Farmer's Market Peppers. 
Our family tried them all (the girls with
hummus).  We decided they pretty much
all tasted the same, except the yellow
pepper which has a hint of tomato.



When considering variety, I think is important to keep in mind that nutritional science is still in its infancy.  The complex interplay between nutrition and the human body is still being elucidated.  For example, the first vitamin wasn't discovered until 1913 (vitamin A).  Beyond vitamins and minerals, consider our understanding of phytochemicals.  Not considered nutrients, phytochemicals are compounds found in plant-derived foods that have biologic activity.  For example, resveratrol acts as an anti-oxidant and is found in grapes.  Another example are the indoles which may prevent damage by carcinogens and are found in broccoli, watercress, and other cruciferous vegetables.  The list of phytochemicals is long and growing, yet their impacts are just now being understood. 

Lastly, to my mind, one of the most fascinating new area of research is the elucidation of gut bacteria complexity (for example, the American Gut Project).  We are just scratching the surface in understanding how gut biodiversity can be impacted by the veggies, fruits, and other foods we eat and how, in turn, that diversity can impact our health.  In the absence of a complete list of all of the "right" fruits and vegetables based on nutritional science, eating a variety serves as a way to ensure you consume all the nutrients needed for a healthy life.

What does "half a plate" look like?

Key to making "half a plate" work is to focus less on specific meals and more on the overall daily intake.  For me, each time I see the My Plate graphic, my mind thinks "dinner", yet to achieve the goal of 2 to 3 cups of veggies per day for adults (printable of age and sex specific recommendations) and 1.5 to 2 cups of fruit for adults (printable of specific recommendations), fruits and vegetables need to be a part of every meal or snack. 

A great photo essay on thekitchn shows 10 options for a daily intake of 2 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of veggies.  Looking at the photos, of course, option # 1 of a big salad, apple, and raisins, seems easily achievable, but many of us don't hit the daily totals.  For myself, I know I had my daily veggie intake earlier this week when I made sesame coleslaw (so yummy!  see recipe at the end of this post), but yesterday, my homemade tomato sauce wasn't quite enough and I should have added a salad.

My Plate has a couple of great pages detailing what constitutes a cup of veggies and a cup of fruit.  It is important to note that the USDA's My Plate include potatoes, including french fries, as a vegetable.  Harvard's Healthy Eating Plate does not count this starchy vegetable as part of their "half a plate" suggestion.

Veggies vs. Fruit

The USDA My Plate recommendations for children are as follows:

 

		Daily Veggie	Daily Fruit
Children	2-3 years old	1 cup	1 cup
	4-8 years old	1.5 cups	1 to 1.5 cups
Girls	9-13 years old	2 cups	1.5 cups
	14-18 years old	2.5 cups	1.5 cups
Boys	9-13 years old	2.5 cups	1.5 cups
	14-18 years old	3 cups	2 cups

 

 In our house, I would say we often hit the fruit target, but the veggie recommendation?  More rarely.  What is the solution?  Some parents, concerned about their children's well-being and fruit and veggie intake, hide vegetables and fruits in other foods (or buy products that offer this subterfuge).  This approach doesn't teach children to like the taste of vegetables or fruits.  Others require children to finish X in order to have Y (usually dessert).  In the case of dessert as a reward for finishing other foods, it overvalues these treats in children's minds.  I would like to offer that there are other options.

While variety is clearly important, Ellen Satter argues that "Fruits and vegetables carry the same nutrients, so a child can be well-nourished on either". Perhaps just as importantly, Satter recommends leaving virtue and pressure off the menu.  Pressure, even positive "great job!" or "take one bite", can backfire.  Kids start to see certain foods as undesirable (as Satter says ''if they have to do all that to get me to eat it, it can't be good'').  Highlighted on the Fruits and Veggies More Matters website is a 2014 study that demonstrated the preschool aged kids ate fewer carrots and crackers when told these foods would make them healthier or help them learn to read or count. 


Early fall apple

Along with pressure, virtue doesn't help.  In her steps to Mastering Family Meals, Satter suggests a little Ranch dressing or butter might help make vegetables more palatable for children (and adults!). 

One of the hallmarks of Satter's approach to eating is to remember that food is pleasurable.  In the next post, I will delve into issues of local, organic, and conventional, but a strong argument for local and fresh may simply be those fruits and veggies taste better and are more pleasurable to eat! 

As Satter's approach takes the long view of eating, creating lifetime habits.  Dina Rose in her book, It's Not About the Broccoli, offers a similar view.  She argues parents need to focus less on nutrition and more on habits, specifically proportion, variety, and moderation.  She suggests taking the pressure off dinner to be the big veggie serving time, by serving fruits or vegetables at every meal or snack.  One suggestion is to take advantage of hunger by offering vegetables as appetizer.  And if your family needs dessert, Rose suggests that on some evenings, your dessert is fruit.

Translating Focus and Variety in my kitchen

My conclusion is that we are on the right track.  My girl eats a variety of fruit from grapes to fresh pineapple to expensive berries to all kinds of pears and apples and more.  She doesn't get all the variety she needs from the fruit, but it is a solid start.  On the vegetable side, I need to keep serving the regulars that are happily eaten, but be on the lookout for new recipes that may entice her (and the rest of my family) to eat veggies we would normally reject.  And my research reinforced my philosophy of not forcing eating or tasting, but trusting that someday she will gobble down a big salad.

Easy 2 cups--Coleslaw
 
At some point, I stopped eating coleslaw.  Somehow, I didn't see it as "good for me" in the way I saw salad.  I think it was something about mayonnaise not being a great choice or some other malarkey.  Fast forward to a few years ago when I bought Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food.  From her recipe, I began to understand all of the variety you can bring to coleslaw.  The recipe is simple.  A little salt and pepper.  Then the dressing--one tablespoon cider or wine vinegar to 4 tablespoons olive oil.  Of course, red wine or apple cider vinegar will create a different coleslaw and I found myself experimenting.  And subbing mayonnaise for olive oil is sometimes the way to go.  The key, in my mind, to good slaw is let it marinate in the fridge at least an hour before serving.
 
However, my new favorite slaw is from Real Simple.  Skipping the cilantro because to me it tastes like soap, my dressing is:
 
1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon of canola oil
1/4 teaspoon each of pepper and Kosher salt
 
Using a mix of green and purple cabbage with some carrots, the coleslaw veggies offer a great variety and a pleasurable addition to dinner.

 

References
All quotes and sources are linked in the above text.  General nutrition information came from Whitney and Rolfes' Understanding Nutrition, 13th ed.