"Eat your vegetables!" Growing up, how many of us heard our Mom scream those words across the dining room? We all have the memories of being told to eat our vegetables as kids. We've all been urged to eat as many vegetables as possible since birth because they're supposedly good for you. As children, we're typically taught that our development is 95% attributed to vegetables. The tallest kid in P.E. class ate her vegetables. The fastest kid on the football team ate his vegetables. The kid who was always wide awake and attentive in class ate his vegetables, and as it turns out, Mom was right. Vegetables are good for your health.
There is substantial scientific evidence behind the idea that veggies are good for you, packing tons of vitamins without additional calories. Lately though there has been a lot of talk about vegetables as an aid to weight loss, especially green leafy vegetables. The main claim is that vegetables make you feel more full so you tend to eat less, thus, they help you lose weight.
Most people though have found that vegetables aren't the most filling food item on their plate. When was the last time you finished your salad before a meal and pushed away your entree saying "phew..I don't know if I've got room for dinner now." That's because vegetables in regular food servings are not very filling at all. They don't trigger the same 'full' signals in your brain as something like a carb-laden food like bread would. You will always feel more full after a sandwich than you would a serving of vegetables the same size. That's the key, though: size.
You can eat more vegetables than you can anything else but with a fraction of the calories. Vegetables tend to be the only food group you can eat enough of to get full and not gain weight. You are encouraged to eat everything else, carbs and protein included, in smaller amounts because they are much more calorie dense. Let's say you want some oatmeal. You could probably eat half a cup and that would be a sufficient amount for your body to use as fuel. You would get 150 calories and 27g of carbs from this breakfast. However, because it is a small portion you will not feel full. A half a cup of meat will offer about the same amount of calories since protein and carbs are both 4 calories per gram. Your body has what it needs, yet you are still hungry.
So now let's add two cups of vegetables. That is four times the amount of food you have already eaten, by far enough to kick you over the scale to fullness. The difference is, two cups of vegetables will probably only add up to about 15 calories, and now you feel full.
Most people aren't inclined to eat this many vegetables because they tend to be the least tasty of all the food groups. But now that you know that it is the one type of food in the world that you can eat enough of to feel full, maybe you'll change your mind. Vegetables are high in fiber and that is why they add bulk to the diet. According to the National Academy of Sports Medicine, additional benefits of the fiber in vegetables include prevention of constipation, an increase in the satiety value of foods, lower incidence of heart disease and certain types of cancer, and regulation of the body's absorption of glucose which can decrease the risk for complications attributed to diabetes. Another added benefit to vegetables is that they take more energy to digest than they actually contain so you might just be burning calories eating which is enough to make anyone want more.
Now that you know the truth about your parents' advice, maybe you'll heed it and start dropping those pounds by eating more veggies!
