For crying out loud, why eat fruits and vegetables?

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Bluestocking, you ask a good question, and I want to reassure you that I am putting thought into this, particularly out of concern for lower-class citizens and the intellectual victimzation they have had to endure.

There are always three positions one may hold in any debate: proponent, opponent, and skeptic. In our case, the proponent says, "Fruits and vegetables are essential to a healthy diet and/or significantly reduce the risk of illness," the opponent says, "Fruits and vegetables are not essential to a healthy diet and/or don't signficantly reduce the risk of illness" (which is what I speculate), and the skeptic takes neither side but withholds his or her judgment until carefully thinking the matter through.

In this conversation, I am the skeptic. I have not failed to answer any questions because I am the one asking them.

Now, get ready for a long post...

I'm going to show you the flaws in the studies Henriksson posted. In no way do they convince me that the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables are worth their cost or inconvenience.

We'll start at the beginning, the Introduction.

The first question to ask is: By what likelihood will the risk for such ailments be reduced, and how do we know?



Here, they allude to the possibility that they have found a proof that eating fruits and vegetables is worthwhile. Now, we must carefully read the study to determine whether this is merely an argument from authority or an unsupported claim.



Again, by what amount? By the wording, we can't tell whether it's 10%, 1%, or 0.01%. Actually, they will end up giving us percentages, but we will notice that there still some flaws in the argument.



Here, they are giving us a straight-up fact about the study. They sampled 110,000 men and women. However, they don't tell us where they got their people from or whether their sample was biased. Nor do they tell us whether they segregated individual people into the control group or tested the same people with different diets.



Now we are getting into the crux of the argument. A correlation is being assessed (in that sample) between decreased risk for heart disease and fruit and vegetable intake.



Wait a minute! Where did they pull that from?

They just finished comparing people who ate fruits and vegetables to people who didn't, and now they're trying to draw a causal relationship? That, ladies and gentlemen, my friends, is the fallacy of post hoc reasoning.

Consider the following counterexample. We take a sample of 100 women who wear expensive jewelry, silk dresses and fancy slippers, and 100 women who wear more modest clothing. We find that women who wear the more expensive clothing are less likely to have stomach ulcers than the women who don't. Would we infer from this that high-class attire 'likely contributes' to a reduced risk for ulcers? Of course not.

A real cause for this may be obvious: women who can't afford such clothing are more likely to be homeless. It is a fallacy to attempt to infer causation from correlation.



No, that's the same fallacy! Just what are they trying to do, here?

Let's look at another study.



People who follow certain diets 'reduce' their blood pressure. Notice the vague wording. Do they reduce it by means of those diets, by some other means, or just by being healthy enough to get a well-paying job to afford the diet? What does this have to do with fruits and vegetables, anyway, now that we're talking about saturated fat?



Unsupported claim, possibly resulting from another fallacy of post hoc reasoning.

As they will now point out, there are flaws in these studies:



I do believe that there are problems in these studies, not as a result of the subjects' memories but of their social class.

As I suggest in my original post, including fruits and vegetables into one's diet may only be a way to show off one's innate health and fortune, a mere sexual advertisement similar to a peacock's tail, in which money is squandered at leisure from the sheer wealth of the buyer's income, whereupon it is then argued -- quite disrespectfully -- that those who aren't born with the right genes to make money are simply foolish, that they somehow deserve to suffer.

Few things could be more revealing of the twisted, manipulative cruelty of the spoiled rich classes than, "Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables."



'Probably'? Is that the best they can do?



Note the key words here: 'May help protect.' 'May reduce.' It's better than lying, but still does not help us much.

The study continues on the unquantified benefits of eating fruits and vegetables without in the least bit proving their necessity to a healthy diet.



Oh, funny. If their arguments were more persuasive, they wouldn't have needed to say 'bottom line.'



Or 'clearly.'

If something is described as a trial, that usually means they took a randomized sample of people and had them change their diets along the lines specified and then observed the results, so the social class issue you keep harping on about is not relevant. It would definitely suggest a causal link.


And yet you call yourself a "skeptic" rather than an "opponent?"


Yes, this is obviously the case- the idea that fruits and vegetables are good for you must be a massive conspiracy by the upper classes, with the entire scientific community in on it. They just want to laugh as you choke down those celery stalks.

As for your criticisms of the other studies... it's hard to do real experiments involving humans, for obvious reasons. Especially long-term ones. So to a certain extent we have to have to rely on finding a link. Now, you are correct in saying that correlation does not imply causation, but that is only in strict logic. In biology, nothing is ever "proved" the way something is in mathematics. We have to see what seems to correlate and draw what conclusions we can.

Your evolved body, that's why. Our bodies did not evolve from our modern artificially made foods. Fruits and vegetables are a natural food our ancestors lived off of along with other natural foods. And your body will be much healthier if you stick to natural foods.



The first part of an answer.



I don't need to take pills if I'm already getting vitamins naturally, rather than artificially.



See above.



First off, fruits and vegetables are not all that your diet should be made of. Second, what kind of rice? Third, peanut butter and breads are from other food groups that should be eaten along with fruits and vegetables for a healthy diet, among other food groups. Vitamins are not a food, they are a supplement.



Try buying the bagged apples, at my store you can get them in bags of around a dozen for $5. Also buy fruits and vegetables that are in season, they're cheaper then.

Apples should not make up your whole diet, nor should bread and vitamins, so comparing their cost vs bread and vitamins is rather dubious.



Seriously? What are you chewing each bite 1000 times before you swallow?



Perhaps they're bad apples or green, green apples are bitter. If you think red delicious apples(That's their name) taste bad, then you're either buying bad apples, not rinsing them off well, or have strange taste buds. Why feel bad about throwing out the core? Toss it outside for birds and insects or something.



You don't need to cut oranges into pieces, you just pull off the peel. If you're getting juice everywhere you're doing it wrong. Once you get the peel off, oranges are already naturally partitioned, you just need to pull the slices apart. Really, you don't need a knife or sharp object to eat an orange, at all. The seeds are annoying and most perishables perish pretty easily, I'll give you that.



Then they're failing pretty terribly. Most poor people don't bother buying fruits and vegetables, they eat the cheap junk foods instead. Stuff that's bleached and has additives out the yin yang and that offer very little in nutritional value.




Do you have any idea how many fruits and vegetables go to waste every day in a grocery store? You say they're costly, but in reality they're cheap when you consider everything required to get them on to grocery shelves.



A convoluted theory.

...

Last edited by claire-333 on 21 Apr 2009, 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Human beings have been eating fruits and vegetables for a lot longer than science has known they were "healthy" foods, so your conspiracy idea doesn't convince me.

If they taste bad to you, you may have the supertaster gene. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

Of course, and it happens that fruits and vegetables are unnatural, really!


A question comes to mind, could it be argued that the topic would fit more into the random or perhaps the adolescent forum instead of PPR, out of curiosity?

It belongs in the Great Trash Heap Beyond the Internet.

I'm amazed that anyone can be so ill informed as to the production of meat for the mass market and its inherent horrifying cruelties. There's lots of stuff on the web. Look it up.

Insofar as the OP is concerned, I do a lot of my own cooking and baking and the disgusting tastelessness of a diet without fresh fruits and vegetables is appalling. They probably are healthier but my first concern is the delights of eating and inventive food preparation and pills and carbohydrates certainly have little place in the mix.

For one, there is more copper in fruits and vegetables. Copper is involved in the absorption, storage and metabolism of iron and the formation of red blood cells. It also helps supply oxygen to the body. Other types of foods only have trace amounts.



You're shittin' me, right?



You're doing it wrong. Just peel off the skin.



... You're shittin' me, right?



Waste money? Where are you buying your fruit and veggies, exactly? And like mikebw, they are cheaper in season.



You're still shittin' me, right? And what do genes have to do with what you can afford?

Thank you all for your helpful responses.

First, I must ask you, Orwell, if you will please remain polite. If you actually had a good argument, you wouldn't need to hurl insults. Let's look at your first post.

You may be right that usually they are randomized. But you can't be sure unless they provide you with that information.



It certainly is relevant, and the issue I'm 'harping on' (rather, discussing) pertains to a hypothesis, a theory, that I have formulated from my point of view with my limited information.



Suggest one, you say? Perhaps, but it doesn't imply one, as causation may not be inferred from correlation.



Yes. Even skeptics can make guesses.



I wouldn't be surprised.



No, it is true everywhere and at all times, even when your teacher isn't grading you, in the same way that 2 + 2 = 4 is true everywhere and at all times. 'Correlation implies causation' is what we call a fallacy, a flawed rule of deduction with which we could possibly derive false knowledge.



In this case, we cannot draw any conclusions that refute my conspiracy theory.



And please do not compare my topic to garbage. I've made a lot of effort in my life to pick up yours.

In response to greenblue, what on Earth makes you think that this belongs in the Adolescent forum? I'm 25. Did you mean the Adults' forum (where they mostly talk about sex)?

In response to mikebw...



Aren't plain bread and rice natural foods to which we've adapted?



But this is merely a restatement of the very claim I'm questioning.



I've done that. It still seems highly expensive per calorie.



Given their already tremendous price (about $1 per 100 calories), I doubt they would get cheap enough.



They're just so hard to swallow! I don't feel like getting a knife out and peeling one, and when I take a bite, I feel like I have to chew the little pieces that still remain, and chew and chew and chew, until they're just right before I can swallow them. I could eat a plate of pasta in the time it takes me to eat one apple. It's frustrating to me.



That finding supports my theory. I imagine they're getting a lot of criticism for it.

Over time, I've tried to move away from 'junk' foods to simple whole wheat bread -- too bad they don't always sell it at a a fair price.



If they're going to waste, why don't they reduce the supply?



I hope sadism is wiped off the face of the planet.

I'm still not convinced that fruits and vegetables are worthwhile. At any rate, thank you.

In response to androo4salez...



What about soy and barley? Aren't they rich in copper?

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=53

People like to say that whole wheat is good for you, but, actually, its just better than white. The whole wheat we eat is nothing like the bread people ate 400 years ago.

Starches were introduced fairly recently(in a evolutionary sense) to our diets.

Spuds and bread are just not THAT good for us. Especially a fair number of aspies.

I also suspect that any time now some researcher is going to come to the conclusion that corn is not good for people. Corn is used in everything.

Ideally, in my mind: rare cooked meat, green veggies, fruit and herbs. No cows milk, no cheese. Drink water. Spare the salt, spare the sugar.

On this subject, I'll let you all know that even though I've loved wheat and dairy products all my life (including buttered pasta topped with parmesan, which was one of my favorites), I got tested for opioid peptides and it turned out negative. The milk peptides were slightly higher but both were in the normal range.

It goes to show you that a love of these foods proves nothing.

In response to Fuzzy, are you really suggesting that they ate processed, white bread back in the old ages before whole wheat? I somehow doubt that.

Also, did you know that whole wheat bread contains an animo acid called isoleucine which is used in the manufacture of a brain chemical called oxytocin, which makes your orgasms better? I bet you didn't know that.

I haven't been that terribly insulting, and others have been worse.


I didn't feel like searching for the original article and studying it. A trial means that they took a random group of volunteers and had some of them do something different, in this case eat different foods.


I'm really not following. The usual cited reason for the upper classes being healthier is because they are able to easily afford a healthy diet including fruits and vegetables. The lower classes are still eating garbage that has high caloric content but little nutritional value. If the idea that fruit is good for you is an upper-class plot against the poor, why is it that the rich eat more fruit than the poor?


Causation can not be proven from correlation, no. But in some fields, we can't ever have such perfect proof. In biology, we have to settle for less a lot of the time.


But genetics doesn't determine socioeconomic class. Nor do genetics entirely determine health- far more significant are lifestyle choices.




I wouldn't be surprised.[/quote]
Then you are overly paranoid. Such an idea is not internally consistent- why do the same scientists who tell you fruits and vegetables are healthy eat such food themselves if it is a fraud? It doesn't make sense.


Yes, but the term "imply" has a much different connotation in everyday parlance than it does in logic. Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively adn gesture furtively while mouthing "look over there."


We can say it is unlikely enough to be considered false. We can say it is inconsistent with all available knowledge pertinent to the subject, and therefore the chances of it being true are negligible.


If it looks like a duck and it waddles and quacks, call it a duck.


Fruits and vegetables are not there for simple caloric intake, they're there for the nutritional benefits. For sheer calories, yes, you need to include some stable foods like rice, grains, corn, a bit of meat.


There's no such thing as a "fair" price. There are prices determined by market mechanims, and prices that are artificially set lower or higher and break down in the face of a black market.

In any case, it might be true that you could be possibly design a fairly healthy diet that forgoes fruits and veggies. It probably would not be as healthy as including them, and it would likely be a hassle to balance everything correctly, but it could possible be done. Much like vegetarians, if they work hard enough, are able to find nutritional alternatives to meat, I'm sure if you really wanted you could find alternatives to fruit. But why? Oranges are delicious. Ditto for grapes, and apples are good if you get the right kind. Bananas taste good, and are easy and non-messy to eat. Strawberries, peaches, nectarines, blackberries, all good. Try some pineapple sometime- if you don't think those taste good, there's something wrong with you.

Anyways, next time someone tries to attack you with fresh fruit, remember this class:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bCyIAsSid8[/youtube]

NO! Of course not. In the dark ages they ate unprocessed and mostly unleavened whole mixed grain. What we call whole grain really isnt. All of the chaff is removed. Their bread was flat, lumpy, filled with grit and chaff, and often nasty stuff like ergot and insects. Leavened bread is caused by yeast growing in it. Its related to the stuff that causes your moms yeast infections.

BREAD is the food of the poor. Cheese is too. Go to 7-11 and buy a hot snack. Its got either wheat flour or corn meal in it. And almost certainly has cheese. Find me a type of potato chip there that doesnt have flour, corn meal or cheese in it either.

Junk food isnt full of veggies.

The Romans produced free bread for the poor. It was a means of maintaining political popularity. BREAD is the food of the poor.

Veggies were a staple for hunter gatherers and rural farmers. Fruit was a luxury.

Your whole theory is predicated on a stunning lack of knowledge of the history of food.



I'm not obsessed with my orgasm sir. I have better things to do than manipulate my diet to enhance that ephemeral experience. Maybe lay off the toast and just try some kegel exercises? They have a wider range of benefits.

Bread was the food of the european poor but in Ireland that was potatos, In central africa it's manioc, etc. There is some variety anyway.

As for the meat stuff, I would like to quit meat. I do find it unethical to eat meat in an era where we no longer really need to do that. Beyond the arguments about the treatment of animals, I think meat is also a resource intensive food source and given continued population growth, would likely become quite expensive. Then again, we'll probably be growing our steak in petri dishes before long. Technology will remove the argument.