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How nutritious are your fruit & veg?
Surely it wasn't Vegie Man's intention to spark a public
debate about the nutritional value of fruit and vegetables.
Part of a $5 million Federal Government campaign launched
in April to promote healthier eating habits, Vegie Man's
mission was to educate the Australian public on the health
benefits of increased consumption of fruit and vegetables.
Surely Veggie Man didn't mean to spark a controversy... |
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The 'Go For 2 Fruit and 5 Veg' campaign encourages
Australians to increase their intake of fruit and
vegetables to at least two serves of fruit and five
serves of vegetables a day.(1)
Some members of the public, however, didn't quite
agree with Vegie Man. As Peter Jewett's letter to
the Editor, The Advertiser, May 2, 2005, stated:
"The report urging everyone to eat more fruit
and vegetables appears to make good sense. But, unfortunately,
eating more fruit and vegetables is not the answer.
The practice of harvesting fruit long before it is
ripe to prolong shelf life robs the fruit of most
of its essential vitamins and minerals, making it
all but useless as nutrition.
"Likewise with vegetables. They are often grown
in depleted soil and are force-fed with a handful
of chemicals. Again there are very few nutritional
benefits from such practices.
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"Of course, there are organically grown fruit and vegetables,
but they can be very expensive. A far better solution would
be to eat as much fruit and vegetables as possible in an
attempt to gain roughage, but also take daily a multi-vitamin
and mineral supplement for good health.
"Years ago the old saying used to be 'an apple a day
keeps the doctor away', but not any more. Today, you would
need a kilo-and-a-half of apples, and even then there is
no guarantee that you will get all the nutrition that you
need."
Peter's statement was soon followed by another letter to
the Editor in The Advertiser of May 4, 2005, this time from
the South Australian Fruit and Vegetables Coalition (SAFVC),
in which they categorically dismissed the claim of nutritional
deficiency in fresh produce.
"Peter Jewett's suggestion that fruit and vegetables
are 'useless' nutritionally is far from the truth. His assertion
that the nutritional value of fruit and vegetables has changed
as a result of modern farming practices is clearly refuted
by a study conducted by Food Standards Australia and New
Zealand (released May, 2004), which found that there was
no significant difference in the mineral or nutritional
content of fruit and vegetables available today and those
available more than 20 years ago.
"South Australians should be reassured about the health
benefits of eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables.
They not only provide vitamins and minerals, but also provide
other substances beneficial to health, and are low in fat,
salt and sugar.
"Eating more fruit and vegetables may be the single
most important dietary change needed to reduce the risk
of major diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, stroke,
type 2 diabetes, overweight and some cancers….."
The SAFVC's letter seemed to close the issue and tip the
balance back in favour of Vegie Man and his campaign. But
the victory was short-lived. The day after the publication
of SAFVC's letter, The Advertiser published a letter from
Jaymie Lee which reopened the debate.
"So the South Australian Fruit and Vegetables Coalition
says our fruit and vegetables are nutritious, and that there
is no difference between foods of 20 years ago. But what
about 50 years ago when our kids were healthy?
"Back then a cup of spinach on average contained around
1200mg of iron; today it's only about 2mg. As for fruit,
try peaches. Then about two would give a woman today's equivalent
of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin A. Today,
she would have to eat about fifty…."
Jaymie's letter, with its authoritative tone and dramatic
figures, soon had the industry experts up in arms. As Graham
Brooks' letter to the Editor, The Advertiser, May 9, 2005,
stated:
"It seems quite clear that in more than 40 years as
a professional horticulturist, I missed out on some incredibly
important facts about the nutritional value of fresh produce.
"One of my roles in the horticultural sector was to
represent Australia on international committees establishing
quality standards for fresh fruit and vegetables. Could
Jaymie Lee please provide the authoritative reference source
from which she/he extracted the information quoted in the
letter?
"On the surface of things, it appears to me that, in
her/his case, a little knowledge is dangerous….."
No answer from Jaymie was published. Jaymie's statement
also had Vegetarian Action intrigued, but attempts to contact
her/him were futile. Futile too was VA's attempt to have
a letter to the Editor published in reply to Peter Jewett's
letter and somehow contribute more constructively to the
topic.
The truth of the matter?
All in all, Peter's letter seemed to hold some truth, though
there were aspects of it which needed clarification and
elaboration. In answer to Peter's concerns about the loss
of vitamins and minerals in fruit and vegetables due to
their early harvesting, it is important to note that consuming
locally-grown (as opposed to exotic) produce may greatly
reduce this problem. Locally-grown fruit and vegetables
have relatively short distances to travel from their places
of production to their selling points, and as such they
don't need to be harvested so early.
Another way of ensuring a high nutrient level in fruit
and vegetables is to choose seasonally available varieties,
since out-of-season produce is either grown far away (and
as such, picked early to withstand long-distance transport)
or, if produced locally, may not fully develop their nutritional
content due to the artificial manner and environment in
which they are grown.
Not the answer
Regarding the growth of vegetables in depleted soil and
the consequent need to 'force-feed' them with chemicals,
land degradation is a fact. However, abstaining from eating
plant food is not the answer to this problem. People have
to eat something and eating less plant food can only result
in an increased consumption of animal-derived foods.
Since the production of animal-derived foods requires many
times the land needed to grow plant food for direct human
consumption, this translates into overuse of the limited
arable land we have at our disposal. As a result, producing
meat and animal products is the main cause of land degradation.(2)
Because of the poor conversion rate of plant food into
meat and animal products (it takes 9 kilos of plant-based
protein to produce 450g of steak), raising animals for food
is inefficient in terms of land use.(3)
It is estimated that a meat-based diet requires about one
hectare of land per person, a lacto-vegetarian half a hectare,
and a vegan only a tenth of a hectare.(4)
As the availability of arable land has reached its limits
worldwide, intensive agriculture is applied in order to
grow the huge quantities of crops needed to produce animal-derived
foods. No rest is given to the soil - no time is allowed
for the land to regain its fertility naturally, and this
over-utilization results in a process of degradation which
can be compensated for only through the use of huge amounts
of chemical fertilizers.
As Juliet Gellatley and Tony Wardle of Viva! (UK's Vegetarian
International Voice for Animals) say:
"The growth in the number of animals [raised for food]
since the Second World War can only be supported by pushing
the fertility of the soil to the limits - and increasingly
beyond. It is done with such an array of chemicals - some
2,000 or more - that it is perhaps not surprising that some
of the biggest and most successful multinational companies
are now the pharmaceutical corporations…..
"The old concept of rotation, growing different types
of crop over a four-year period, including one year in which
the land is left fallow, has largely been usurped by chemicals."(5)
Relying on a meat-based diet not only exacerbates the problem
of soil depletion, it also doesn't provide us with a food
with a higher nutritional content, especially as regards
mineral content. Animals don't produce minerals. The iron,
calcium, zinc, etc, found in meat and animal products are
originally present in the plants eaten by the animals.
If the soil is deficient in minerals, so are the plants
which grow on it and consequently the flesh and products
of the animals which feed on them.
The outcome of the debate
In the end, it looks as if the debate didn't produce a
clear winner or loser. What Peter, and possibly Jaymie,
were saying is that soil depletion is a reality, and that
in today's circumstances soil productivity can only be ensured
by the liberal use of chemical fertilizers. And that's what
modern conventional agriculture is all about. Of course,
any study or analysis of the fruit and vegetables produced
in this way may not show any significant nutrient deficiency
- although one is left wondering whether the use of artificial
agents can ever truly duplicate the natural process of fertility
regeneration, especially regarding micronutrients and all
those nutritive elements which we may not even know about
yet.
Ultimately, using organic produce seems the best way to
solve this nutritional dilemma. It's true that organic food
can be expensive, but, as more and more people opt for this
form of food production, it will become correspondingly
less expensive to produce. Each one of us who is concerned
about the nutritional value of our food has the choice to
become part of that critical mass which will allow the spread
of organic agriculture, and thus do our bit in the process
of healing the planet - and consequently our bodies.
By relying on plant food - both organic and, when that
is not possible, conventionally-grown - I personally have
never had the need for multi-vitamin and mineral supplements
in my twenty years as vegan. 
© Vegetarian Action July 2005
References
(1) Allison, Lisa. 'Vegie Man to Plant Seeds for Healthy
Living', The Advertiser, 29/4/2005, p. 20.
(2) Our Food Our World: The Realities of an Animal-Based
Diet, Santa Cruz, CA, EarthSave Foundation, 1992, p.7
(3) Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation, Second Edition, London:
Jonathan Cape, 1990, p. 165.
(4) Robbins, J. Diet for a New America, Stillpoint, USA,
1990. Cited by Wood, Morna, 'Food for a Healthy Planet'
in New Vegetarian and Natural Health, Spring 1997, pp. 54-55.
(5) Gellatley, Juliet and Wardle, Tony. The Silent Ark,
Thorsons , 1996, p. 172.
* 5 serves of vegetables per day - seem impossible?
Don't forget that legumes (such as
dried peas and beans) are, technically, vegetables, and
are considered to be vegetables for the purposes of nutritional
education such as the "2 fruit and 5 veg" campaign.
This means that for vegetarians,
(and especially vegans), whose diet is based around plant
foods who rely on legumes as a staple food, eating 5
serves of veggies per day isn't difficult. For more
information, check out our Vego
Kitchen Cupboard Guide.
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