Are vegetables possibly overrated?

When we think of healthy food the first category that comes to mind is vegetables. But I recently discovered that as far as I can tell, there’s nothing in vegetables that we can’t get from fruit, meat, and/or dairy. They have fiber but fruits have some fiber too, as do grains of course. Additionally from what I understand the nutrients in vegetables tend to be less bioavailable than in meat dairy and maybe fruit as well. I certainly think vegetables are healthy, but have we maybe been mistaken about just how good they are?

Answer

They have more fiber than any other groups

They have more varied types of fiber

They have more phytochemicals than fruits, except berries (more and more research shows these plant exclusive nutrients, ranging in at least 10,000, to have a wide influence in our overall health)

No, I wouldn’t say vegetables are overrated. 97% of the country are deficient in fiber, I suppose that’s reason enough. Why? Because fiber is severely underrated.

Answer

So a lot of people structure their plate as protein, starchy carb, and nonstarchy vegetable. When you consider that we are experiencing an obesity epidemic, the fact that nonstarchy vegetables and mushrooms are able to basically be negligible calories but take up a substantial fraction of the plate, that is very powerful.

Answer

I have never seen a controlled trial that demonstrated a real benefit of vegetables for a hard endpoint. I know of some trials that tried to show that a low-fat diet rich in fruits and vegetables would inhibit cancer, and those trials failed.

Answer

An ideal diet comes from having a variety of food, and vegetables are certainly a part of it.

Although you can find all the other nutrients in veggies from grains, fruits and meat, but they are the safest with highly nutrient density. Meat comes with high saturated fats, some grains are refined and high energy dense and less nutrient dense. Some fruits comes with high sugar.

So there’s a reason they recommend at least 3 servings of veggies a day. Variety is so important.

Answer

Vegetables are extremely low calorie, and quite satiating for that calorie content.

Add to that you can get large amounts of nutrients out of them, you essentially have food full of nutrients that fill you up and are versatile in fitting into a normal diet.

Not to mention the fibre and water content.