I put canned in parentheses because I am referring to V-8 juice too (i.e., in the bottle).
Anyway, I have Type 2 Diabetes and I am a little overweight. And my diet isn’t always perfect. (I just couldn’t live without at least some sweets. Sorry.)
But I do try to get fruits and vegetables into my diet as much as possible. And sometimes they are fresh. But sometimes that isn’t possible or practical.
My question is, do you get the same dietary protections with canned vegetables? I am of course talking about the healthy ones. Cherry pie filling is in a can where I live. I don’t mean that. Also the Reagan administration reportedly classified ketchup as a vegetable. I don’t agree with that. And then there are potato chips (you get the picture…).
Canning involves heating that basically cooks the food and that can affect nutritional content.
Vitamin C, for example, is non-existent in canned fruits and vegetables. It’s destroyed during the canning process.
Fiber, on the other hand, remains intact. More fiber in the diet is associated with better health and reduced risk of some cancers. So you’ll still get the benefits of fiber from canned vegetables and fruit.
Canned vegetables are probably better than no vegetables at all and do have some benefits. Also, sometimes manufacturers add in additional nutrients which can affect the final product.
V8 juice, more specifically, gives you the nutritional benefits of potassium, vitamin A, and vitamin C (which, if destroyed during processing, is added back in before final bottling). While it does have sugar it does not have sugar added. One downside is that it actually does not have much fiber in it because it’s the juice of vegetables and not the vegetables themselves. Also, V8 is not a low sodium food.
So… drinking V8 juice has some benefit and it’s certainly better than soda or a bunch of other high-sugar beverages. But you don’t want to over do it and you also want to eat some actual vegetables and not just drink their juice.
I don’t think that is correct. Canning does destroy some of the vitamins - typically up to half of the initial amounts of some vitamins, including vitamin C, but it is not true to say the vitamin content of the final product is nonexistent.
I was going to weigh in on the points that you’re missing out on fiber and getting too much sodium if you try to drink your vegetables with V-8 than by eating fresh, but @Broomstick ably covered those bases.
I will say I love V-8 and, though I don’t drink it all the time, I do like to take it camping because it’s hard to keep and prepare a lot of fresh fruits and veggies, so V-8 is a convenient substitute. Also, it’s delicious with a shot of vodka and a little Worchestershire mixed in
I did not say ALL vitamin content is destroyed. Vitamin C is an example of one nutrient that is very heat-sensitive and often is destroyed by processing. The delicacy of vitamin C is one reason scurvy used to be a lot more common, and not just in sailors - it used to be that after a winter a lot of folks were showing some signs of C deficiency. As I also noted, these days manufacturers can add C back into products after the heat is applied to boost content of that vitamin.
Some nutrients are heat sensitive and can be destroyed or diminished by the canning process. Some are not sensitive and will be preserved, such as vitamin A and potassium.
If a person is getting sufficient amounts of heat sensitive nutrients from other sources - say, they’re eating an orange a day (note I said “orange” and not “orange juice”) then this is not a critical problem. If eating canned vegetables (not juice, actual vegetables) then they’re getting the benefits of things like fiber and many other nutrients and the low levels of heat-sensitive things (like C) isn’t a huge issue.
Specifically, lemon juice that is boiled for shipboard preservation has no vitamin C content, which is why scurvy outbreaks in the British navy continued for almost a century after the basic connection between citrus and scurvy prevention was discovered. However, not all processed citrus has all the vitamin C eliminated. A can of mandarin oranges has more than 100% of the RDA for vitamin C. The amount of vitamin C that one needs to stave off scurvy is minimal - eating a slice of lime or even a dish made with tomato sauce once per month will do it. There’s no way someone who eats canned fruit at any frequency above “never” is at risk.
You said Vitamin C is ‘non-existent’ after canning. I don’t believe that’s correct. Certainly it’s diminished, but still typically present in worthwhile amounts
I would argue it depends on the canning method, but not very vigorously. In the bad old days they’d do things like boil lemon juice to store it long term because of the limitations of their technology. These days, sure, modern commercial canning has much better temperature control.
I’d hate to have to depend upon canned food for 100% of my vitamin C needs even these days, but if you have information contradicting what I’ve been told all my life - and it seems you do - then I’ll have to adjust my internal database accordingly.
Well, just looking at the USDA nutrition facts for canned tomatoes - 100g of the canned product contains 15% of RDA for Vitamin C
Fresh tomatoes contain 20% of Vitamin C RDA per 100g.
So (rough notional figure, ignoring a whole bunch of probably minor factors) it looks like about 25% of the vitamin C is lost in the process of canning tomatoes.
Obviously that won’t be the same for every product in every form and every style of canning/preservation.
Also worth noting that when people talk about anti-cancer* properties of fruits and vegetables, they are often talking about things like carotenoids, anthocyanins and stuff like that - in many cases, cooking/canning makes these things more readily available than they would be in the raw fruit or vegetable.
*(As I understand it, such claims are often rather overblown, but generally fall into the category of ‘sure, but it can’t hurt’)
The rate of ascorbic acid decomposition is sensitive to temperature, pH, and catalysts (that include fructose), so YMMV. The UC Davis study saw a 95% reduction in canned peaches.
But, of course, while there’s some connection between cancer and diet, the evidence for fruits and vegetables providing the thread title’s “cancer protection” is tenuous. With somewhat better (but still not great) evidence for fiber than for any individual small molecule components (e.g. antioxidants, vitamins.)
Yeah, a lot of it might come down to how, in general, when you have more of one thing, you may have less of another; if you ‘go healthy’ with your lasagna sauce by packing it with red peppers, carrot, black beans, etc, it might just be the fact that there is less beef in a serving portion, that is the greatest measurable health benefit.
BTW, I don’t know if I should point out that I also take a multivitamin/multimineral too. And my doctor (now retired) has me taking 2000IU Vitamin D. (This is odd, because I assumed I was already getting it in the multiple. Oh, well.)
Yeah, as already noted, V-8 makes the best Bloody Mary. Me, I don’t even bother adding a third ingredient .
It looks like the consensus is that water-soluble vitamins (i.e. vitamins C and B) can be degraded as a result of canning, but a considerably amount remains.
“Vitamin C in Canned Foods Remains Stable: While some vitamin C is lost during the canning process, most of what is lost ends up in the liquid and the level of vitamin C remains stable during the one- to two-year shelf life of the product (Illinois Study, 1997).”
Apparently canning can increase nutrient availability in the case of antioxidants. And depending on how and how long you store fresh produce, it can lose nutrients fairly rapidly.
Same? No. But roughly of equal benefit. Maybe better given that a slight decrease in something like vitamin C is generally not an issue especially given a multi being taken. The fiber and antioxidants are what the multi cannot replace and canned is fine to better, more from the cancer protection perspective of the OP. Better yet if the convenience gets you eating more of it and less of the crap.
I guess I might as well tell you all, my A1C went up to 9.3. I just called my doctor’s office yesterday. As you recall, last time it was 8.7 I believe.
No need to lecture me. I actually have made some positive changes since last time. IAE I am not doing anything worse. So why would it be going up? Could it be some other meds I am taking? Oh, and paradoxically my lipid cholesterol is surprisingly good. What does it all mean?
I am seeing the doctor next Wednesday. Any suggestions (what to talk about, what to ask, etc.)?
