Dear reader,
It has been a long time ago that I haven’t written about food in general, so I think it’s time to go back to this very important topic. 😉
There are so many things to write about food. However, before that I should confess that I’m a fresh beginner since I don’t know how to cook (although I’m quite interested in learning). I just know how to eat.. 😉
One thing that I became very interested recently is how to make a delicious salad. I do know that there are a lot of available videos in the Internet showing how to make it, step by step, even for a beginner like me. However, I think that first I should try to learn and understand the benefits of vegetables. Therefore, the purpose of this short article is to do a light introduction to them. 🙂
According to Wikipedia, “the word vegetable was first recorded in English in the early 15th century. It comes from Old French, and was originally applied to all plants; the word is still used in this sense in biological contexts. It derives from Medieval Latin vegetabilis (meaning growing, flourishing of a plant), a semantic change from a Late Latin meaning to be enlivening, quickening.
Also, the meaning of vegetable as a plant grown for food was not established until the 18th century. In 1767, the word was specifically used to mean a plant cultivated for food, an edible herb or root. The year 1955 saw the first use of the shortened, slang term veggie. A more precise definition is: any plant part consumed for food that is not a fruit or seed, but including mature fruits that are eaten as part of a main meal. Falling outside these definitions are edible fungi and edible seaweed which, although not parts of plants, are often treated as vegetables.”
Therefore, the words “fruit” and “vegetable” are mutually exclusive:
A Venn diagram shows the overlap in the terminology of “vegetables” in a culinary sense and “fruits” in the botanical sense.
Vegetables play an important role in human nutrition where most are low in fat and calories. They supply dietary fiber and are important sources of essential vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. Particularly important are the antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E. When vegetables are included in the diet, there is found to be a reduction in the incidence of cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic ailments. Research has shown that those that eat more than five servings everyday have an approximately 20% lower risk of developing coronary heart disease or stroke. The nutritional content of vegetables varies considerably; some contain useful amounts of protein though generally they contain little fat, and varying proportions of vitamins such as vitamin A, K, and B6; provitamins; dietary minerals; and carbohydrates. However, vegetables often also contain toxins and anti-nutrients which interfere with the absorption of nutrients. These include α-solanine, α-chaconine, enzyme inhibitors, cyanide, oxalic acid, tannins and others. These toxins are natural defenses, used to ward off the insects, predators and fungi that might attack the plant. Some beans contain phytohaemagglutinin, and cassava roots contain cyanogenic glycoside as do bamboo shoots. These toxins can be deactivated by adequate cooking. Green potatoes contain glycoalkaloids and should be avoided (Vegetable).
The figure below compares some vegetables (and some fruits too) that don’t need so much pesticide (the “cleanest” ones) with those that require a lot (the “dirtiest” ones) 😉 :
The clean 15 x the dirty 12!
It’s interesting to mention here that China and India are the largest vegetable producing countries, but I wonder if they’re the largest exporter countries too.. In addition, Japan as the fifth largest one quite surprised me since it’s a very small country!
The largest producers of vegetables!
It seems to have a correlation between the countries that produce more vegetables and the ones that consumes more:
Vegetable consumption [Kg / person] (source: United Nations FAO))
That’s all for today! I hope you have found this short article useful and interesting. Stay tuned for more articles about vegetables, please!
Best Regards from The Land of Cabbage (and Onion too) 😉 ,
Wilson
Works Cited
“Vegetable.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Mar. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable.
