Why veggies are bad for you

Hormetic stress is valuable in small amounts, but too much of it is just as dangerous as any other kind of stress. As well as containing hormetic stressors, some vegetables cause an unpleasant reaction because of the type of carbohydrate they contain: these carbohydrates are called FODMAPs. FODMAPs vegetables are so numerous and sensitivity to them is so common that these vegetables get their own article.

In FODMAPs-sensitive people, though, even a normal serving can cause bloating, digestive upset, and gut bacteria overgrowth. Nightshades are another class of vegetables that can be less than ideal. The nightshade family includes potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, and eggplant; these veggies contain lectins that can exacerbate autoimmune issues and trigger joint pain. Hypothyroid symptoms are an additional reason to watch your vegetable intake.

Some vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage, contain a type of chemicals called goitrogens. Some of these substances can be destroyed or reduced by cooking — nightshade lectins and goitrogens, for example, are both decreased during the cooking process.

On the other hand, fermentation actually increases the goitrogen content of a food, so skip the sauerkraut if you have hypothyroid problems. But the number of potential vegetable intolerances should point out that not all plant foods are automatically healthy for everyone, especially eaten in excess. Vegetable farming can be just as polluting and also just as cruel as factory farming.

First of all, the toxic pesticides and herbicides that we spray on the fields are dangerous not only to the people who eat the vegetables, but also to the land surrounding vegetable farms.

These chemicals leach into the air and water, and become environmental toxins that damage local ecosystems and human health. Another strike against the modern farm system is not really about the health of the vegetables themselves, but about the human cost of food production.

Vegetarians and vegans who avoid animal products out of fears about cruelty would be horrified to learn the actual working conditions on many vegetable farms.

Many farmworkers are recent immigrants often living in the country illegally and subject to terrible working conditions.

Many victims of these terrible working conditions children, because a loophole in US law allows children under 16 to do agricultural labor. But understanding the abuses of vegetable farming strips off the automatic halo of virtue that surrounds anything green and leafy. In Paleo circles, we spend a lot of time criticizing factory farms and the horrible conditions that animals have to endure.

We should also be aware of the environmental and human cost of our vegetables, and work to make all our food as cruelty-free as possible. Vegetables are wonderful! The real danger lies in seeing vegetables as the ultimate goal of a healthy diet, because no one food group by itself is perfect. Green and root vegetables such as turnips, potatoes, swedes, broccoli and cabbage contain the highest levels of nitrates.

Professor Kenneth McColl, who is leading the study, believes the cancer may be triggered in some people when the saliva they swallow meets the acidic juices in the stomach. Saliva plays a vital role in converting nitrates into carcinogens, or cancer-causing chemicals.

Professor McColl, 51, warned that organic food does not provide a healthier option because it also contains substantial levels of nitrates, some of which came from natural fertilisers such as manure. He said: 'It appears that the mass production of vegetables in the western world since the last world war may be the underlying factor that has led to such huge increases in this form of cancer.

He claims that countries with less sunlight, such as Britain, may be more affected by the phenomenon than sunnier countries because they grow the majority of produce under glass.

Professor McColl said: 'We now want to determine if the permitted levels of nitrate fertilisers, which have fallen somewhat in recent years, may be partly to blame. Hopefully, with further human tests, we will be able to see exactly how and why this is taking place because at the moment it is a mystery, but one that is having severe consequences.

Some victims were as young as 30 and a number of sufferers died within a few years of being diagnosed. Cancer of the gullet appears to affect people in Scotland more than any other part of the UK. In the past 20 years the number of people annually diagnosed with it in Scotland alone has risen from to more than 1, No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

Argos AO. Privacy Policy Feedback. The cancer occurs at the point where the oesophagus joins the stomach. Share or comment on this article:. Comments 0 Share what you think. He tells ScientificAmerican. The reason, he says: the heat breaks down the plants' thick cell walls and aids the body's uptake of some nutrients that are bound to those cell walls. Cooked carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, peppers and many other vegetables also supply more antioxidants, such as carotenoids and ferulic acid, to the body than they do when raw, Liu says.

At least, that is, if they're boiled or steamed. A January report in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry said that boiling and steaming better preserves antioxidants, particularly carotenoid, in carrots, zucchini and broccoli, than frying, though boiling was deemed the best.

The researchers studied the impact of the various cooking techniques on compounds such as carotenoids, ascorbic acid and polyphenols. Deep fried foods are notorious sources of free radicals, caused by oil being continuously oxidized when it is heated at high temperatures.

These radicals, which are highly reactive because they have at least one unpaired electron, can injure cells in the body. The antioxidants in the oil and the vegetables get used up during frying in stabilizing the cycle of oxidation. Another study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry in showed that cooking carrots increases their level of beta-carotene.

Beta-carotene belongs to a group of antioxidant substances called carotenoids, which give fruits and vegetables their red, yellow, and orange colorings. The body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, which plays an important role in vision, reproduction, bone growth and regulating the immune system.

The downside of cooking veggies, Liu says: it can destroy the vitamin C in them. He found that vitamin C levels declined by 10 percent in tomatoes cooked for two minutes—and 29 percent in tomatoes that were cooked for half an hour at The reason is that Vitamin C, which is highly unstable, is easily degraded through oxidation, exposure to heat it can increase the rate at which vitamin C reacts with oxygen in the air and through cooking in water it dissolves in water.

Liu notes, however, that the trade-off may be worth it since vitamin C is prevalent in far more fruits and vegetables than is lycopene.

Among them: broccoli, oranges, cauliflower, kale and carrots. Besides, cooked vegetables retain some of their vitamin C content.