Home & Garden

About the Author - Dr. Susan Hamilton

Dr. Susan Hamilton is an associate professor in the University of Tennessee Department of Plant Sciences and director of the UT Gardens. The gardens are a project of the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, with locations in Knoxville and Jackson: http://utgardens.tennessee.edu.

I’ve been on my soapbox touting the great physical and psychological benefits of gardening. Now I offer even more good news about the benefits of gardening: Eating fresh garden produce is good for you!

More Servings, More Benefits
Eating fresh fruits and vegetables every day is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Research continues to show that many essential nutrients in fresh produce may protect you from cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, and they also give you more energy, help reduce weight gain and may even reduce the effects of aging.

Did you know the average American eats only one to two servings of vegetables per day, around five times below the recommended amount? To maintain proper health, men should eat up to nine servings per day, while women are encouraged to have at least seven daily servings. And it’s the veggie’s unique phytochemicals that promote our good health.

Mighty Phytochemicals
Phytochemicals are powerful food factors that elicit profound effects on human health maintenance and disease prevention. Usually related to plant pigments, they are the reason we promote eating your colors. Yellow, orange, red, green and purple fruits and vegetables generally contain the most phytochemicals, with more than 900 found in plant foods, according to my colleague Dr. Dean Kopsell, an assistant professor of plant physiology at the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on producing vegetables loaded with beneficial phytochemicals and identifying the phytochemical content of vegetables based on their genetic make-up and how the crop is grown. Factors such as light, water and fertilizer can greatly impact how nutritious your fruits and veggies can be.

Kopsell’s preliminary findings indicate that using less water and fertilizer can make for more nutritious produce, but more in-depth study is needed. For those concerned about artificial inputs over the course of agricultural production, remember that when you’re growing your own food, you’re also controlling what pesticides or fertilizers are used.

Check out Kopsell’s Web site at http://plantsciences.utk.edu/kopsell/kopsell.htm to learn more about his studies on nutrition.

Keep the Crunch
Kopsell’s take-home message is that the best source for phytochemicals is fresh garden produce. Once you cook produce, you quickly lose the beneficial qualities.

If you want to cook your veggies, Kopsell recommends only lightly sautéing or steaming them – you want to keep them crispy and crunchy. Once veggies lose their crunch, they have also lost their nutritional value. For example, he notes research from Dr. Elizabeth Jeffrey at the University of Illinois that has shown steaming broccoli for longer than three minutes reduces its nutritious value.

While you may purchase many phytochemical compounds as over-the-counter supplements and herbal tablets, Kopsell says fresh fruits and veggies provide the greatest benefits, especially consumed in their natural state.

Growing Inspires Eating
Gardening not only provides you with fresh fruits and vegetables, it also encourages you to eat them. Once you are blessed with a bushel basket of tomatoes, you will have newfound interest in finding recipes for tomatoes.

What’s more, picking fresh produce from your garden is a great way to get children to eat fruits and vegetables. My son would not eat tomatoes until he was able to grab his own cherry tomato off the vine. He and his sister have loved to eat salads since they were very young because it was fun for them to pick their own lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers – and then eat them. 

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Magazine:
Tennessee Home & Farm, Fall 2010 Edition Edition

Headline:
Veggie Tales

Summary:
Colorful, straight-from-the-source produce enriches a nutritious diet.

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