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Eating four to eight servings of vegetables a day provides numerous health benefits, including vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients that can prevent or deal with illness and injury. Whole foods are more beneficial than supplements, and a variety of colors ensures complete nutrition.
People are often told to eat their vegetables, and there’s a good reason for this: There are numerous health benefits of vegetables that make them a very important part of the human diet. Eating four to eight one-cup servings a day confers a number of benefits that cannot be obtained from other food sources.
Vegetables contain a number of vitamins and minerals that are beneficial to the human diet. Things like potassium, vitamin C, folate, and vitamin A, among many others, can be found in abundance in vegetables. These vitamins and minerals are needed by the body on a daily basis, and they also help the body stay healthy so it can prevent or deal with illness and injury. Pregnant women and people with certain chronic diseases also appear to benefit from increased dietary mineral and vitamin intake.
Other health benefits of vegetables can be found in the phytonutrients they contain. These nutrients do not appear to be immediately necessary for the human diet, but do appear to confer some benefits, such as protection against cardiovascular disease. Diabetes, some cancers, kidney disease, stroke, and bone loss appear to be at least partially preventable with a high intake of vegetables, as numerous dietary studies show.
Studies have also suggested that eating whole foods appears to be more beneficial than taking supplements. The health benefits of vegetables cannot be replaced, in other words, by eating vitamins, because vegetables have complex trace compounds that cannot be copied, and because vegetables themselves appear to help the body metabolize vitamins and minerals. tools.
Vegetables are also high in fiber, which can reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and some cancers while regulating digestion. Fiber can also be found in the whole fruit. Fruit and vegetable juices lack fiber, although they do contain many of the vitamins and minerals found in whole fruit. The health benefits of vegetables can be obtained from raw or cooked vegetables, with frozen vegetables being a good option when fresh vegetables are not available.
Something to keep in mind when thinking about the health benefits of vegetables is that it’s a good idea to eat a rainbow of colors. Different colored vegetables have different levels of vitamins and minerals, and by eating a variety of colors, people can ensure they are getting all the nutrients they need. Carrots, for example, are rich in vitamin A, while dark leafy greens are high in calcium. Carrots or broccoli alone will not provide complete nutrition.
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