What You Don't Know About Food

       Do you think sweet corn and potatoes are nutritious? Do you enjoy eating nice juicy apples because they have so few calories? Do you think you are healthy when you are eating romaine lettuce? Do you think our blueberries are the healthiest? Do you like to eat orange carrots because it will improve your eyesight? If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, I've got news for you: there is something a lot better that you could be eating.

      Studies published within the past 15 years show that much of our produce is 
      relatively low in phytonutrients, which are the compounds with the potential 
      to reduce the risk of four of our modern scourges: cancer, cardiovascular 
      disease, diabetes and dementia.

       We started "breeding the nutrition out of our food" about 10,000 years ago, when people started to become farmers. The Native Americans ate wild dandelions, a staple of their diet. We thought we were being healthy eating spinach, a known "superfood", but dandelions actually have seven times more phytonutrients than spinach and that is just the start.

        Though I would think that I now know a lot about corn as I wrote my Junior Theme on it; I know I have barely touched the surface. One thing that I still love learning is even more about corn everyday. The sweet corn we love to eat at BBQs during the summer is a distant relative of Indian corn or teosinte. Though teosinte was smaller and not nearly as sweet as our corn today, it had ten times more protein, a lot of starch and a little sugar. The indian corn that we see as decorations in the fall in a variety of colors is actually "rich in anthocyanins." Anthocyanins are able to "fight cancer, calm inflammation, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, protect the aging brain, and reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease." Would you consider eating some bitter corn? 

       The supersweet white corn we eat, well that's a result of radiation; don't worry the corn isn't still radioactive. Varieties of this corn can reach up to 40 percent sugar; it's practically dessert. SO when you're at the grocery store next time consider picking up some different varieties of the foods you eat.

Blue corn has 90 times more nutrients than white corn.

The Sikkim crab apple has 58 times more nutrients than our Golden Delicious apple.

Dandelions have 40 times more nutrients than Iceberg lettuce.

The chokeberry has 16 times more nutrients than our blueberries.

Purple and yellow carrots have 16 times more nutrients than orange carrots. 

The Purple peruvian potato has 171 times more nutrients than the white potato.

(To see graphs on the foods above click here)