What is it about vegetables and fruit that makes them healthy? Is it more than just vitamins and minerals? (and fibre)

What is it about vegetables and fruit that makes them healthy? Is it more than just vitamins and minerals? (and fibre)

I mean, I'm not about to start living on multivitamins and Raisin Bran, but I'm curious. Because nutritionists are always saying supplements are not a substitute.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_phytochemicals_in_food
livestrong.com/article/262977-nutrition-fruit-and-vegetable-colors/
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

I don't know. I'm not an expert. I eat that stuff because I like it, though.

Vitamins supposed to be digested better due to the rest of the plant being with it. It works because science.

part of it is certainly that they're more filling and make it harder to overeat.

part of it is that sometimes our bodies suck at absorbing nutrients from multivitamins. i don't know enough about nutrition to explain why.

Fruit is fulfilling. Think of how little it takes to fill you up and how long you feel full afterward compared to junk food or carbs

>Is it more than just vitamins and minerals?
Yes. Most plants contain a vast variety of chemicals, many of which have an effect on humans (both beneficial and harmful). Of course some of them are much more common and well-studied.

The "vitamin and mineral" meme is really just one particular way to look at human health. For example, vitamin C is only a vitamin if you actually value what vitamin C does for your body. If scurvy is not something you dislike, then vitamin C is no longer a vitamin. Similarly, many non-vitamin substances in plants have beneficial effects on various parts of your body. If you value your body, then these are essentially vitamins.

Fiber is another example (since you mentioned Raisin Bran). "Fiber" is an extremely diverse category of compounds, and each sub-category has many different varieties. Here are some types of fiber

Non Starch Polysaccharides and Oligosaccharides
Cellulose
Hemicellulose
Arabinoxylans
Arabinogalactans
Polyfructoses
Inulin
Oligofructans
Galacto-oligosaccharides
Gums
Mucilages
Pectins
Analagous carbohydrates
Indigestible dextrins
Resistant maltodextrins
Resistant potato dextrins
Synthesized carbohydrates compounds
Polydextrose
Methyl cellulose
Hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose
Resistant starches
Lignin substances associated with the NSP and lignin complex
Waxes
Phytate
Cutin
Saponins
Suberin
Tannin

Another type are beta-glucans, which are found in oats and barley and lower LDL cholesterol. Do you want to lower your LDL cholesterol? Do you value lowering LDL cholesterol as much as you value your eyesight? If yes, then beta-glucans are a vitamin.
The point here is that, even just looking at fiber, there is no fiber supplement that will supply you all of the different types of fiber that exist in real food. And even if you were to buy all of them in isolation, you are now spending more time taking supplements than you would have spent eating normal food.

shhhhhhhhhhhhhh..

low calories

fiber

nutrients vitamins and shit

easy on the stomach digestion and stuff

they let you feel full easily

So these weeks I've been eating veg, fruit, legumes, seeds, tea, and the occasional fish/chocolate.

Do you think that covers the nutritional bases? I eat pretty much everything, just not as regularly as these. It feels kind of frugal.

Totally forgot to mention grains in the regular foods.

>"vitamin and mineral" meme
It sounds like you don't know what vitamins and minerals are. There are two names for a fucking reason. Learn more about how your body catlyzes reactions to perform needed functions before spouting off inane bullshit.

Do all those starches really have a positive effect on health? Pectin is used to give jams their consistency- at least in my country. I'd find it amusing if it indeed is good for you.

What I add is that supplementing vitamins and minerals doesn't give the same actual quality as an equivalent amount consumed via foods.

Seems quite low on protein, to be entirely honest. It's a very, very healthy base though.

>needed functions
"Needed" is defined arbitrarily, it's not a scientific concept. Read my post again before you get on your high horse.

When I get more settled I'll prob eat seafood more regularly. Also some offal and poultry.

Well some of both of them have antioxidants that are also good for you if you don't want cancer I suppose.

If you enjoy offal, please, eat as much as you can. It's environmentally and nutritionally very sound. I personally wish I ate more, and have been looking for beef heart.

Why is it amusing? It makes sense. Most dietary fibers help bind and gel the contents of your bowels.

>opinion discarded.png
I read it again. You clearly don't know shit about physiology or biochemistry.

>antioxidants

>offal
>environmentally and nutritionally very sound
Not true.

I suppose I'm easily amused. I just remember my grandmother and mother using that stuff on berries picked in the forest to make jam.

>(you)

You're not posting meaningful replies. You're just saying "you're wrong" in increasingly obfuscated ways, needlessly dropping important sounding words like "physiology" and "catalyze" to make yourself appear knowledgeable. Yet you still have not made a single point or argument. It's cute.

vitamins are generally coenzymes. Coenzymes are used by the body to create favorable conditions for an enzymatic reaction (i.e. a fucking catalyzed reaction that involves a lower energy input than if a catalyst was not used for the reaction). Enzymatic/catalytic reactions are how you live. As an example, the breakdown of glucose in your body would require you to be on fire if it weren't for enzymes.

Therefore, learn what a fucking vitamin is before you start spouting psuedoscience.

Minerals, on the other hand, are not coenzymes. They are generally smaller molecules or atoms your body uses as-is, not to facilitate a reaction of a molecule with an enzyme.

I was hoping you would google the shit and learn something instead of sitting on your high horse.

Bottom of food chain - less toxins. Also, they generally produce everything that organisms higher in the food chain need to survive. They can't eat simpler animals so they have to produce it themselves

>The "vitamin and mineral" meme is really just one particular way to look at human health. For example, vitamin C is only a vitamin if you actually value what vitamin C does for your body. If scurvy is not something you dislike, then vitamin C is no longer a vitamin.
Are you retarded?

>everything is subjective bros

sounds great

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_phytochemicals_in_food
livestrong.com/article/262977-nutrition-fruit-and-vegetable-colors/

But how much of that is useful to your body?

Kek.


But he's right

The majority, most likely. We're only beginning to scratch the surface of our understanding of phytonutrients and their interactions with each other and effect on the human body. What we've learned so far points in the direction of them all having some effect and many of them having effects that are influenced by which other phytonutrients they're paired with.

Absorption of iron from plant sources is enhanced if it's paired with citrus, for example. Absorption of turmeric is increased nearly 2,000% if paired with black pepper. That kind of shit. It's all very complex and interrelated but the basic message you should take away is that a diet that includes a variety of whole, natural foods is good for you in ways we're only beginning to understand and it will be centuries, if ever, before we fully understand all the intricacies of nutrition, much less reach a point where we're able to craft comparable synthetic substitutes.