JGL53

I eat a lot of meat, eggs, and dairy, but I like vegetables and fruits too. I would agree that eating fresh or fresh frozen vegetables makes all the difference in the world. Plus, how you cook them and what you cook them with makes a BIG difference in taste. E.g.:

Steamed asparagus is great dipped in melted butter or blue cheese dressing.

Cooked greens like turnip or mustards need to be cooked with bacon, then drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar (and/or hot sauce), and eaten with buttered corn bread (or is that a Southern thang?).

Green beans, peas, and butter beans are great if cooked with bacon and, again, eaten with corn bread with butter - along with sliced tomatoes.

Roasted or steamed red, yellow or green bell peppers (and onions) make great complements to steak or hamburger. Ditto a salad of baby greens with e.v. olive oil and red wine vinegar, with add-ons like black olives, hard boiled egg, shreaded cheese, walnuts, green onions, etc.

Squash, cauliflower, mushrooms, etc. can be pureed and, with added cream and spices, used to make delicious soups.

Avocado (is that a vegetable or a fruit?) is great just cubed, mixed with tomates, with added lemon juice - or your favorite dressing. Ditto artichoke hearts.

I crockpot about fifteen different vegetables (e.g., red beans, corn, carrots, tomato paste, onions) and cubed stew meat. Easy to do and is a complete meal.

So, what's not to like about vegetables?

miss djax

i can dig up some sources if you like, but from what i understand, there are phytochemicals in fruits and veggies that only exist in fruits and veggies. so supplements may provide vitamins and minerals, but you won't get any health benefits from the phytochemicals..

miss djax

anakata

Am I the only one in here who LIKES bitter stuff, and has always done so? For example, I've always liked tonic water, and of course (although I don't consider it close to bitter) broccoli.
I'm lucky that I'm not living in the stone age I guess, or I would've happily consumed members of /Datura/ and /Atropa/...
And yes, I like the taste of alkaloids and amines in general. Don't ask me why I know...

NonHomogenized

I will apologize in advance for my lack of sources, but it's 3:15 am, and I'm at work.

In principle, yes, we can obtain all of the nutrients from supplements. In practice, this is somewhat stickier.
First of all, unless certain nutrients are present in certain proportions (ie, selenium and vitamin E), only a small amout (if any) will be absorbed by the body. The rest passes right through. In an average, store-bought multivitamin, you aren't actually getting more than trace amounts of most of what's on the label.
Second is the manufacturing process. Most supplements are manufactured by heat pressing them. Many vitamins, especially the antioxidants, are very sensitive to high temperatures, and are destroyed by that process.
Finally, we don't know all of what the body needs or uses yet. That being the case, we don't know what trace nutrients are needed, but are not found in supplements (if any).

Tara

Wow. I personally would be very unhappy eating a diet without fruits and veggies, but now, knowing that multivitamins are not at all a reliable way to get one's nutrition, it seems rather shocking that so many people eat so few fruits and vegetables.

I've been concerned about getting enough iron since I do not eat any red meat. Does all this suggest the only way I can get enough iron is from eating food with iron, that a iron supplement or multi-vitamin is not going to make up for my lack of red meat consumption? I eat some iron-containing vegetables like spinach and lots of beans, but I've been told it's hard to get enough iron from vegetable sources alone and I doubt I do a good job of it.

JGL53: mmm... some of what you mention sounds delicious, although typical veggie consumption for me is more like a boring salad or some plain, old cooked broccoli or carrots

EspressoSnail

If you have one (or can get one) I think you can get some iron from cooking with a cast iron skillet, but that just may be rumor or something... not sure if it's true...
I think dark green veggies like spinach have iron in them and so do some nuts, you could also look at fortified cereals and stuff like that.

scombrid

Not sure if it's in a biologically useful form but Cream of Wheat has a load of iron in it.

Stiletto One

Well, to add in my two cents:

Pills and Metamucil (heh) can't beat Shanghai Bok Choi.

'nuff said.

Nuno Figueira

Pills are nowhere near the same as vegetables, to this day chemicals with anti cancer proeprties are still being found in vegetables like brussel sprouts and broccoli and there's probably a whhole lot more we don't know about.

mouse.

Rather eat fruit and vegetables than a multivitamin pill think of how a pill will look on a plate..... weeny, let alone how do you cut one up

Some how mixed fruit Pavlova wouldn't be the same with a vitamin pill instead of the fruit.

Meat and 2 vitamin pills has not got quite the same appeal.

Mind you if cabbage vanished I won't complain at all.


:banghead: mouse.