Originally published August 19 2005
Vegetables provide essential nutrients
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Veggies like kale can provide you with the essential daily nutrients that your body requires.
If you ask Dr. Michael Murray, kale deserves our respect, and we should encourage our children to eat great heaping bowls of it.
Edible plants are here to be served and protect, and they can help alleviate ailments as diverse as anxiety attacks and varicose veins, say Murray and co-author Joseph Pizzorno, who wrote the Encyclopedia of Healing Foods.
There's plenty of evidence that eating lots of fruits and veggies protects against cancers of the mouth, lung, stomach, colon, larynx, pancreas, breast and bladder, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research.
The AICR report Food Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: a global perspective says that if people did just one thing - consuming just over two cups of vegetables and fruits a day - it could reduce the overall incidence of cancer worldwide by at least 20 percent.
"These are compounds that don't have nutritional value in that they're not essential vitamins and minerals, but they seem to be very important in helping our bodies function better," Murray says.
More research is under way to see whether they have the same impact on leukemia.
And fruit can do more to help protect your vision than a bushel of carrots.
Three or more servings a day may reduce by 36 percent the risk of age-related macular degeneration, the main cause of vision loss in older adults, according to a study in the June 2004 issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.
The latest government recommendations are a little better, he says, but still not specific enough.
Before you freak out about how much food that is, please remember what actually constitutes a serving: It's a medium-size piece of fruit or a half-cup of fruit juice, or a half-cup to a cup of cooked or raw vegetables.
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml