Don’t get derailed from veggie habit

By Celia Milne

So vegetables and fruits don’t cut our risk of cancer by much after all? That’s according to a new study and convincing study at Mount Sinai in Toronto. Well, before you throw out your Swiss chard and reach for a Dairy Queen Midnight Truffle Blizzard, keep in mind: vegetables and fruits are jam-packed with flavonoids and the science is very strong that eating them cuts risk of heart disease and infection.

Here’s a picture of superstar model Sophie Dahl cooking with onions, mushrooms and garlic. Her new cookbook, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights, is loaded with ways to include such earthy delights in your diet. Flavonoids, which are health powerhouses, are found in large amounts in onions, kale, broccoli, blueberries, and citrus fruits.

Dr. Guiseppe Mazza is one of the world’s leading authorities on flavonoids. He works at the Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre in Summerland., B.C.  He’s also affiliated with the University of British Columbia, the University of Manitoba, and the University of Guelph. “Flavonoids fight inflammation and fight bacteria—the major causes of human disease,” explains “The evidence that flavonoids provide heart benefits is also very, very strong,” he said.

Mazza recommends that we eat five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day. “If we ate that much, we’d have fewer cardiovascular problems, we’d be healthier, we’d have longer life spans and have less disease,” he says.

The new study that found cancer risk is not hugely reduced by eating vegetables and fruit was published online April 6 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Paolo Boffetta from Toronto’s Mount Sinai school of medicine and colleagues analysed data from the ongoing European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study. This includes almost 150,000 men and 340,000 women. During the 8.7 years that these subjects were followed, 30,000 were diagnosed with cancer.

A high intake of fruits and vegetables did have a small but significant effect on cancer risk, but perhaps not as strong an effect as was previously thought.