Chow Line: Use 'Top 10' lists to add variety

Occa­sion­ally I see lists of the “top 10″ most nutri­tious fruits and veg­eta­bles, but they’re never quite the same as each other. How much should I pay atten­tion to these kinds of lists?

Try­ing to list the “best” fruits and veg­eta­bles is always going to vary depend­ing on the cri­te­ria used. Some­times those lists rank pro­duce accord­ing to their vit­a­min and fiber con­tent; some­times they focus on in-season produce.

Often, such lists are gen­er­ated accord­ing to the antiox­i­dants in dif­fer­ent foods. Those are typ­i­cally based on a food’s “ORAC” score, which stands for “oxy­gen rad­i­cal absorbency capac­ity,” a test-tube mea­sure­ment that esti­mates a food’s over­all antiox­i­dant poten­tial. How­ever, ORAC scores don’t include the bioavail­ablity of these health-promoting sub­stances — some­thing that just can’t be mea­sured currently.

Still, it’s always inter­est­ing to take a look at such lists. Inevitably, they pro­vide some inspi­ra­tion for try­ing a wider vari­ety of fruits and veg­eta­bles, which is always a good thing. Con­sum­ing many dif­fer­ent kinds of fruits and veg­eta­bles is the key to get­ting the most bang for your pro­duce buck.

One way to make sure you’re get­ting a good vari­ety of pro­duce is to pay atten­tion to their color. The pig­ments in pro­duce often indi­cate the type of nutri­ents and, par­tic­u­larly, the phy­tonu­tri­ents the food con­tains. Phy­tonu­tri­ents are sub­stances that plants pro­duce for their own good, to pro­tect them­selves from plant dis­eases and other poten­tial harm. Luck­ily, they also appear to pro­tect human health as well.

Some phy­tonu­tri­ents are actu­ally plant pig­ments. So, con­sum­ing a wide vari­ety of dif­fer­ently col­ored fruits and veg­eta­bles is a good way to ensure you’re get­ting a good vari­ety of both nutri­ents and phy­tonu­tri­ents. Focus on these:

Green, includ­ing spinach and other leafy greens, broc­coli, okra, green pep­per, kiwifruit, green grapes, hon­ey­dew and limes.

Orange and deep yel­low, includ­ing corn, sweet pota­toes, yel­low pep­pers, car­rots, grape­fruit, peaches, pineap­ple and cataloupe.

Pur­ple and blue, includ­ing egg­plant, pur­ple cab­bage, blue­ber­ries and black­ber­ries, plums and raisins.

Red, includ­ing red pep­pers, red pota­toes, toma­toes, rhubarb, red onions, pink grape­fruit, water­melon, red grapes, cher­ries and cranberries.

White, tan and brown, includ­ing cau­li­flower, jicama, onions, pota­toes, turnips, bananas, brown-skinned pears and dates.

For more infor­ma­tion and ideas, see http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/.

Chow Line is a ser­vice of Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion and the Ohio Agri­cul­tural Research and Devel­op­ment Cen­ter. Send ques­tions to Chow Line, c/o Martha Fil­ipic, 2021 Cof­fey Road, Colum­bus, OH, 43210–1044, or filipic.3@osu.edu.

Posted by Guest 2 Columnist on Jun 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.