This is a very simple observation: Almost every expert person or advertisement or article, when speaking of nutrition and produce (garlic, ginger, beets, spinach, oranges, ect.), always deals with calories, vitamins/minerals, water content, fiber, ect. Now, we all know that there are other things in produce besides these aforementioned ingredients, namely phytochemicals. But, it is curious, no experts seem to want to include these chemicals in their discussions on health, even though they are proven to have AN effect on our bodies. There are many sites out there outlining the main phytos and their proven anti-cancer and anti-heart disease effects, so why do they seem to be ignored by the experts’ articles and discussions?
Basically, I just need the general SD on produce-contained phytochemicals and their physiological effects on our well-being once they enter our mouths. No details, just a summary before I do some other research elsewhere.
It’s kinda hard to comment on this unless you provide links to some of those “many sites” you mention. But I’d wager that a fair number of those sites use a different definition of “proven” than the experts do.
“What is beyond dispute is that phytonutrients have many and various salubrious functions in the body. For example, they may promote the function of the immune system, act directly against bacteria or viruses, reduce inflammation, or be associated with the treatment and/or prevention of cancer, cardiovascular disease or any other malady affecting the health or well-being of an individual.”
“Researchers know that phytochemicals have antioxidant properties (meaning that they protect against substances called “free radicals” which can damage healthy cells)”
What about the phytochemicals cited by NoPretentiousCodename in the thread that lead up to this one - the natural pesticides produced by plants that have potent carcinogenic effects?
Again, while you might find misinformed claims that “phytochemicals” do this or that, you’re talking about thousands of different chemicals that have varied effects, from being dangerous poisons to having antioxidant effects.
Why don’t you do the research and tell us, rather than trying to force other people to concede something because you want to believe it? To simply assume that plants all contain mysterious substances that somehow make you healthier is a belief on par with homeopathy. Some plants contain chemicals that no doubt have very strong benefits for the health, and eating a diet heavy in unprocessed fruits and vegetables is excellent for your health, though what role phytochemicals play in that is uncertain when compared to the simple nutritional benefits that can be adequately described. The way you’re going, you might as well be throwing a fit about the experts who ignore all the evidence that the moon landing was a hoax.
With reference to your apparent particular line of inquiry, I’d suggest the first thing you need to do is define more precisely what kind of compounds you’re looking for. There are a vast array of secondary metabolites in plants which, as Exaclibre has pointed out, have an equally vast array of effects on the human body. To treat them as a group of beneficial chemicals is pretty meaningless. A combination of strychnine and aspirin is technically phytochemical, but would it cure your headache? Possibly, but you’d be dead pretty soon too.
What do you really want to know? Are there plant derived chemicals which might be beneficial to human health which are not currently defined and quantified in processed food? Almost certainly. But your ‘we’re being denied phytochemicals’ suggests a kneejerk reaction to a misleading source to me.
What’s known about nutrition is dumbed down and simplified a lot before it reaches the public. Give it a few years and you’ll hear about phytochemicals a lot.
Are you saying we haven’t heard a lot about them already? I certainly have. But given the way past nutritional crazes have turned out, I’m not inclined to trust this one. Remember Vitamin E? Now it may be bad for you in high doses. Beta carotene? May in some cases cause cancer.
The claims for phytochemicals are vague and nebulous - thousands of chemicals exist, each which has its own effects, but the nutrition articles you read in the newspaper just sort of suggest that “they’re good for you.” The mainstream press leaps to draw conclusions from whatever research it can find, meaning that very preliminary information, based upon small studies that haven’t been corroborated, is reported as essentially fact.
It’s fine if you want to jump on every nutritional bandwagon that comes along - chances are the impact on your health won’t be substantial either way from eating extra carrots when they’re in fashion. But it’s a mistake to count on these mysterious substances to do anything real before their effects are known.
The “nutrition experts” don’t mention phytochemicals directly, just obliquely. All the encouragement to eat unprocessed whole foods is because they know there are substances in fruits and vegetable (some of which may be unidentified) that are beneficial (and, of course, some are harmful). So instead of making the message complicated, the experts say things like “avoid processed foods” and “try to get your vitamins and minerals from diet, not pills”. I’ve seen some nutritionists advocate eating from all the different color families of fruit and vegetables which is another way to make it easy to vary the diet.
But here’s the relevant quote from the “how stuff works” site:
So avoid short cuts. Eat the whole fruit or vegetable to make sure you’re not missing some phytochemical that hasn’t been identified as beneficial yet and might be destroyed through processing. I dunno, I find this whole discussion kinda silly because if you’re that worried about making sure you get all the nutrients you need, why are you even considering drinking juice?
I stopped drinking OJ about a year ago. I eat the whole orange when I have the time. I am not forcing any of my own agendas here, just asking questions. If you would, please stop making this thread about me and deal with the plain English of my questions. It will shorten this thread and make it much less painful for all of us.
So, the summary is that experts do not know enough about these chemicals to offer any useable info to the public? There are so many chemicals in a given piece of produce that to try and sum up their effects on the body would be impossible.
How about the phytochemical which gives a given piece of produce its characteristic color (which I believe is ONE specific phytochemical)? From Howstuffworks: “There are almost 2,000 different plant pigments in the foods we eat. Anthocyanins give strawberries, cherries, cranberries and raspberries their rich red color. Carotenoids give carrots their characteristic orange hue.”
If we start there, can experts draw a preliminary inference on the main effects of eating a certain piece of produce?
Also, I would like to know, and I will look for this online: Of the content of the different phytochemicals in a given piece of produce, is there one or two specific chemicals that VASTLY outnumber all the other ones contained in that piece? If so, it would not be difficult to determine the effects of eating that piece of produce…
There doesn’t seem to be much of an over all index although there are proposals for one: link. (unfortunately, I can’t find the entire article on the web, only the excerpt on this blog)
For your own research, one great place to look are the Calorie Restriction Society Email List Archives. Most of the guys on the list are extremely skeptical (some are a bit monomaniacal tho’) and provide medical references for many of the discussions. Plus, a few of the members subscribe to medical and nutrition journals and will excerpt relevant bits. That would be a great list to join that could point you in the right direction and give you lots of good information.
Again: you do not decide what gets discussed in the threads. If your questions have not gotten good results, it’s because you haven’t asked good questions.
Yes. Individual compounds have been studied, and some appear to offer health benefits, but very few of them have undergone enough research for it to be more than an interesting avenue for future research.
There is not one particular chemical that gives plants their colors - how could one pigment be responsible for the colors of all the fruits you listed? They’re different colors. Anthrocyanins are a class of chemicals, as are carotenoids. The former may be fairly powerful antioxidants - but remember that dietary antioxidants have not been shown to have the effects they are touted for. It’s possible that oxidative damage is responsible for many different health problems, but it’s test-tube research that has suggested that anthrocyanins are useful. To assume from their effects in a chemistry lab that they can (1) survive the digestive process, (2) make it into the particular parts of the body that would benefit and (3) actually have an effect, in the low concentrations that would be achieved in your tissues is quite a stretch.
It’s possible that the hype about antioxidants has become better-proven; I can’t claim to keep up on medical research, and I don’t want to minimize what results there are. But as yet, all of these findings are preliminary - especially since the questions first came to light a few years ago and no long term studies exist yet.
Carotenoids were a huge health craze (you mentioned them in the quoted paragraph) a few years back. Longer studies have shown that beta carotene, the particularly touted chemical, not only doesn’t benefit people’s health, but appears to raise the risk of lung cancer in smokers (which makes me suspicious that they may reinforce the impact of other carcinogens.) That’s the problem with the press’s hype and its tight focus on individual chemicals.
There’s plenty of evidence that a diet containing plenty of fruits and vegetables in different varieties is an excellent tool for your health. There are plenty of reasons this is the case - the role of fiber in health is becoming clearer, they provide vitamins and minerals, and probably most importantly, they aren’t as high in calories; being fat is one of the biggest health problems in the United States. It’s the single-minded focus on “phytochemicals” that I protest - studies that center on the effects of chemicals in test tubes are extrapolated to humans, or short-term studies in small numbers of people are extrapolated to the long term, and we end up being given all sorts of promises. As recent research on beta carotene proves, there is a major danger in jumping into health crazes like that.
But eating a balanced diet of whole foods is not at all a bad idea. Whether it’s due to heretofore unknown chemicals or the same nutritional factors we’ve been aware of for decades, it will make you live longer.
My question was whether we would be able to narrow down the characteristic substance so that we can find out things like you suggest. I said “determine effects”, this includes determining absorption and reactive problems, correct? And it wouldn’t be hard to determine whether only one or two substances have problems such as what you described, correct?
Trust me people, when other people ask questions, its not a matter of true or false. Again, please, answer the PLAIN ENGLISH of the question. It will make this thread go a lot smoother and be less painful.
Will you please stop whining that other people aren’t telling you what you want to hear? If you’re not getting the right answers, you’re not asking the right questions. If you wish to change the culture of the message board, there’s 4000 or so other people you’re going to have to whine at first. It would be more productive to beat your head against the wall.
No one ever said one particular chemical gives EVERY plant its color. Where did you get this from? I suggest you read the Howstuffworks quote again.
As for the rest of your reply, what kind of beta-carotene were they using for that study? In what amounts? For it to be wholly relevant to this discussion, it would have to be in the form and dose and route of produce, correct? What amounts have caused those health problems?
About your 1,2,3: That’s what research is for, determining survival, distribution and effects of chemicals in the body, correct? So, what have the experts found by doing these tests in a logical, all-inclusive manner on phytochemicals? Again, this thread doesn’t have to be about details, I am just outlining the relevant direction.
Trust me, Excalibre, no one has ever gotten sick from eating a single serving a day of various produces. Don’t even try comparing “jumping into health crazes” with reasonable consumption of produce. Besides, we are not talking about that stupid 2% of the population does. I don’t eat any more than 1 or two servings a day of any one produce.
Ok, I’ve been outta the states for a bit. Was there recently some media hype or TV news special or something about these "phytochemicals? WTF is causing all this hype about phytochemicals? How many threads have we had recently about these things, all started by some very convinced and fanatical phyto-supporters??? What started all this?
