Until now, we knew that a diet rich in vegetables, legumes and fruits is good for the heart, health in general and the planet. A recent study found that a young person can gain up to 13 years of life if they eat vegetables, legumes, cereals, fruits and nuts.
But a different study, which analyzed the diets of almost 400,000 adults in Britain, turns out to be what we believed. Research published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition found that eating vegetables, especially cooked ones, did not reduce the risk to the heart.
“Our vast research has found no evidence that eating vegetables has a protective effect against cardiovascular disease,” said Qi Feng, an epidemiologist at the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford.
What research has found is that raw vegetables protect the heart, but cooked vegetables do not. Any health benefits are lost when lifestyle factors are taken into account, such as exercise, education, smoking, alcohol consumption, fruit consumption, red and processed meat diets and the use of dietary supplements.
“This does not mean we should stop eating vegetables,” said Victoria Taylor, a British Heart Foundation dietitian.
“There is good evidence in research that eating high-fiber foods, such as vegetables, can help you lose weight and improve your risk levels for heart disease,” said Naveed Sattar, a professor. University of Glasgow.
“The results are not surprising. If you choose only one specific ingredient and assume that if you just add to the diet e.g. vegetables, this will probably not lead to the desired result “, notes Alice Lichtenstein, of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University.
“One thing that has become clear over the last decade is that we should not be looking at one individual food, but the whole dietary pattern,” he explains.
However, research has found that the average Briton eats five tablespoons of vegetables a day, or 71 grams, or one-third of a cup. About 2.5 tablespoons of them are raw vegetables and the rest cooked.
“This is very little,” said Dr. Andrew Freeman of the Nutrition and Lifestyle Work Group at the American College of Cardiology.
The recommendation in Britain is to consume five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, with each serving weighing about 80 grams (one cup).
In the US, 1.5 to 2 cups of fruits and 2-3 cups of vegetables a day are recommended.
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