Phytochemicals in produce seem to be ignored by the experts.

Factual Questions
61

And who here endorsed the government recommendations? Are you confusing “governmental bodies” with “science”? When did anyone in this thread recommend you follow the food pyramid? Why would you rail about it? In fact, if you had stopped to ask me what I thought, based upon my own layman’s knowledge of the science behind nutrition, I would have told you in no uncertain terms that the food pyramid is ridiculous. It’s set up by the USDA, which is a government body that ironically plays the role of regulator of the food industry and is simultaneously tasked with promoting it, which means that it pushes a diet that’s influenced heavily by what food manufacturers want (and does far too little to regulate the safety of the food supply, which is not why I’m a vegetarian but it’s another good reason). The food pyramid would probably be a step up for most Americans, but it’s far from the ideal diet.

But you didn’t stop to ask me. You decided what I think for me.

“Intrinsic wisdom”? So you developed the notion of phytochemicals not because it’s the trend du jour in the press, but based upon your own “intrinsic wisdom”? And you’re convinced that it’s correct not because it’s been pushed in every media outlet but from your own “intrinsic wisdom”? Was your “intrinsic wisdom” aware of the fact “phytochemicals” include such things as atropine, cyanogenic enzymes (in cherry stones, for instance), and nicotine?

You’re not aware that making words up and putting them in other people’s mouths is considered rude? That’s just my “frame of reference” that doesn’t like it? Sure, I may have recommended a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and you may have claimed I said the opposite, but it’s only my “frame of reference” that makes that wrong? How far does this principle extend? Can I hit people in the face? After all, my nose doesn’t bleed afterwards. I’m not responsible for their “frame of reference”.

Apparently, then, your relativism extends beyond just the realm of the factual but also into your interpersonal relations. In case it comes up again for you, my advice is to remember that most people don’t like to be held responsible for things they didn’t ever say.

What sort of simple answer do you want? Biology is not simple. If you can’t understand the complex answers we’ve given (none of the language was confusing if you ask me . . . ) then we’d be glad to work on being clearer. If you’re asking for a simple answer where none exists, then you’re asking us to lie to you. Is that what we should do in GQ? Try to figure out what answer everyone wants, and tell them that?

If you can’t take responsibility for your constant rudeness, your lies, and your stubborn ignorance, at least try not to blame others for it. Note that other GQ threads don’t end up this way - do you think it’s because we all hate you? (I certainly didn’t, at least not until you gave me reason.) No. It’s because of your own behavior. Do you think your behavior is not connected to what happens to you in life?

Fuel baby, if you don’t like science, why are you so hard up to have science confirm your beliefs? If you don’t care what the factual evidence shows, then why are you asking for it? You don’t get to ask reality to agree with you when you don’t like its answer.

The frustrating thing to me is that I’ve said the same all along - the notion of “phytochemicals” is flawed and basically meaningless; there’s more to nutrition than what’s currently known; the effects of unknown chemicals are more subtle than those of things like vitamins and macronutrients - we know about the big things because it’s easy to see what breaks if you don’t get any or get too much. I’ve said that it’s vital to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables - if you do that, you are on your way to good health, and that’s something that can be conclusively stated with nothing but our own knowledge of the body.

I will freely admit that there are things left to learn in nutrition. There are very likely beneficial chemicals in plants - in fact, research seems to confirm it in certain cases. But there’s also significant quantities of very harmful chemicals, and scientific research has already borne that out as folks more clever than I have pointed out. Plants are not uniformly good or bad. And of course getting the full variety present in an actual food is better than a supplement (who pushes those except for folks in the alternative medicine crowd? Certainly not me. Certainly not most doctors or nutritionists. No one in this thread, in fact.) But the plain fact is we know the big stuff already, which is part of the reason we live three times as long as humans do in a “natural” environment. And the big stuff provides ample reason to follow a diet like the one you’ve been describing - I’ve said so from the very beginning, which is why I get so pissed when you claim I’ve said otherwise.

You asked not for the basics of a healthy diet, but for information about a particular thing. We tried to give you the best answers available - “phytochemicals” are tens of thousands of different things, each with different effects. Some are extremely harmful. Some are very beneficial. They cannot be summed up in one sentence. Why do you need to believe there’s some magical amorphous mass operating inside your fruits and vegetables anyway - it doesn’t change the fact that you should eat a lot of them. Fine. Believe that “phytochemicals” are a mysterious all-purpose magical “goodness” in your vegetables. Believe that they’re suffused with prana or qi if you want. Believe that Jesus came down from heaven and blessed each grape so that it would bring you good health if that’s what makes you happy. Either way, it all adds up to the same thing. So why do you feel the need to fight tooth and nail to get us to agree with you?

Bottom line: you asked for factual information about a particular thing, “phytochemicals”. We’ve been answering you as best we can, and when our answers didn’t agree with the preconceived notions you’ve gotten out of magazines and newspaper articles, you got angry and started claiming we were “blinded by science” (what sort of people would you expect to answer scientific questions?) and you made up lies about what we told you.

:: shakes his head ::

62

Interesting. This sort of research is going to show us amazing things in ten or twenty years, but I have to wonder how different those things will be from what we’re hearing now.

Don’t get me started on pharmaceutical companies, the perverse economic incentives that support them, and the status of herbal medicine. The real tragedy to me is that, since there’s no regulation of their manufacture, there’s virtually no way to be sure what’s in those pills. Which is why sometimes they end up with none of the (theoretical) active chemicals, or contaminated with heavy metals, and so forth. Meanwhile the big pharmaceutical giants are patenting the most ridiculous, tiny alterations of chemicals they developed 10 years ago, making a fortune off it, and complaining about the costs of pharmaceutical research.

:: stalks away muttering about the sad state of herbal medicine in this country ::

Interesting post, and I’d love to hear more about this research if you get a chance.

63

Thank you for your reply.

I want to point out that I said “choose to act as if…”, not choose to believe.

64

Excalibre,
I agree with your assessment of the quality of medicinal herbs, there are many disreputable companies out there, but many fine ones, too. I’ve just spent the weekend with some of the best scientifically oriented clinical herbal practioners on the planet. They have their ducks in a good row, and are doing great work.

This is really another thread topic, but, in that herbalist world, to be on topic, phytochemicals are the main subject of discussion; very actively debated and rigorously dissected in that quarter.

65

Nice post, but let me point this out. The definition of ironic is, in part, “Happening in the opposite way to what is expected”. :wink:

That it is the alternative health industry pushing the pills is completely expected, and thus utterly un-ironic. :smiley: In fact, I would consider those snake-oil sellers more of a “driving force of ignorance.”
(Wow, if I sound like a dick, I’m sorry. I’m seriously not trying to make you look bad, what with me agreeing with your post and all…)

66

Getting back to the OP’s original question… I think there are several possible reasons phytochemicals aren’t viewed in the same class of legitimacy as other macronutrients or micronutrients:

  1. They haven’t been researched as much
  2. The other “vitamins” were popularized at a time when there was less scientific rigor regarding nutrition. Some turned out to be quite important, others less, but here they are in this class of chemicals that are widely regarded as legitimate and important. I suspect the scientific community doesn’t want to propagate that error.
  3. There are thousands of potential phytochemicals. This is getting beyond the list of what you can put on a nutritional label or cram into a sound bite.
  4. It isn’t responsible to lump the few possibly beneficial phytochemicals into a group with thousands of others whose effects aren’t fully known. There are many “phytochemicals” that have no effect at all, and some that will outright kill you.

Your original question was why the experts don’t want to talk about it… that’s the answer. Now if you want to talk about the benefits of phytochemicals, you’ll have to name which ones you want to talk about, and what benefits you think they have.

67

I get this image of a gnarled Fuel rocking on his front porch, dribbling beet juice on his white orthopedic shoes, breath reeking of ginger and garlic, screeching at the Heedless Youth flashing by in their hovercrafts:

"SLAVES OF THE FOOD PYRAMID! YOU’LL BE SORRY!!!"
:smiley:

68

No problem. The irony was just in Fuel’s expectations versus reality. I always have to control my blood pressure whenever I walk into a “natural” foods store and see the hundreds of bottles of newt’s noses and lizard’s gizzards on sale.

69

Or the ultraprocessed soyfoods some vegetarians live on. Why eat some product that’s altered until it’s a pale imitation of some entirely different food? Is that healthier?

70

[hijack]

Is there a name for the inverse of an appeal to authority. You know, the common crackpot belief that if Science/The Lawyers/The Tax Accountants/The Government/The Illuminati say something is true then there is no way it can be?

[hijack]

And WHOA! those “ultraprocessed soyfoods some vegetarians live on” are disgusting! Uh, may I have a tomato instead?

Finally, are we REALLY supposed to be eating the peel when we eat an orange, as Fuel seems to be suggesting? Is raw orange peel digestible? I’ve had it candied and in marmalade but never as much as a whole orange peel and the waxes and oils don’t seem why up there on the list of what’s edible. Like what parents have to teach their young children, just because you CAN put it in your mouth doesn’t mean you SHOULD put it in your mouth. :eek:

71

The argumentum ad novitatem (argument from novelty, the notion that something is true because it is new or or not yet widely adopted) sort of fits this definition, although the impetus for the above described arguments often seems to be rooted in an oppositional/confrontational type of attitude, where the intent is to use the argument to show that the authority is wrongheaded (rather than discrediting the authority to undermine the argument). The fallacy of opposition (that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is wrong) might be more appropriate.

Or we could just make up a new category of fallacy, say argument from defiance, one with which every parent of a two year old is well acquainted. :wink:

What is more annoying though, is the argument that if you don’t accept the claims about the benefits of phytochemicals, something bad will happen to you, i.e. “…while most of you are blind from checking what the authorities have to say about this or that in front of your computers,” (argumentum ad baculumas) as it condemns those who don’t agree, or who even question the premises to be doomed to failure and misery. :rolleyes:

According to this site the peel has the same nutritional content as the orange and is edible; however, I’m inclined to agree that many of the constutants of the peel are probably undigestable. I doubt there are any serious health benefits to eating the peel. Besides, everybody who’s seen The Godfather films knows that oranges are the harbinger of tragedy. :smiley:

Stranger

72

Not necessarily. This thread contains a link that suggests it might actually be quite good for you.

73

Thanks, Ex!

74

Could be…but then, I note that Don Corleone died with an orange peel in his mouth. Ergo, orange peels are lethal. The point is taken, the beast is molting, the fluff gets up your nose. :smiley:

Stranger

75

Hey, I like tofu. :wink:

And I get that you’re riffin’ but you know, of course, that people become vegetarians for many different reasons only some of which are related to health. And I would argue that veggie dogs and bean burgers are healthier for you than the real thing anyway.

76

I wasn’t talking about tofu - there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m talking about veggie hot dogs and stuff - the things altered to mimick something else. I guess it’s true that not all vegetarians are into getting closer to their food, but they just don’t strike me as all that great an alternative to meat.

77

I think smoked tofu is marketed toward the people who ate the erasers off their pencils in grade school. (“Ralph, stop eating your paste!” “Ymmm, Mmffmm Gggrrvpl.”) The regular stuff is okay in dashi with some noodles and kelp. Just don’t feed me any turkeyfu for Thanksgiving. :slight_smile:

After reading The Jungle and Fast Food Nation in quick succession, I’ve come to the conclusion that eating Styrofoam floatation blocks out of a sewage treatment plant would be more healty than eating processed hot dogs and industrial ground beef patties. :eek:

Stranger

78

Well, let’s see:

Beef Frank (57g):

Calories 188
Fat 17 g
Protein 6.4 g
Fiber 0g

Morningstar Veggie Dog (57g):

Calories 80
Fat .5 g
Protein 11 g
Fiber 1g

Beef Patty, 75% lean (64g):

Calories 178
Fat 12 g
Protein 16.4 g
Fiber 0g

Morningstar Classic Soy Burger (64g):

Calories 150
Fat 7 g
Protein 14 g
Fiber 3g

Veggie products are lower in calories and fat and often have some fiber and have very little saturated fat and cholesterol. I’m not saying meat doesn’t have a place in diet; just that the veggie alternatives can be healthier.

79

I find it rather disturbing that the “veggie dog” has more protein than the “all-beef” frankfurter. Just how much hair do they allow in processed meat anyway? :eek:

Stranger

80

SOAT, hair IS protein.