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I'm going to give you three vegetables. You pick the best one.
- Tomatoes
- Green (Bell) Peppers
- Spinach
Now I'm going to give you three more. Pick the best one again.
- Green (Bell) Peppers
- Spinach
- Tomatoes
Would you like to do it again? I guess not.
The best vegetable in the first list is green peppers. Surprise! The best vegetable in the second list is spinach. If I had put okra in that list okra would have won. I loves me some okra. Fried okra. Okra inn soup. Gumbo. Yes sir. I even love the sort of slimy thing it's got going on.
I wasn't really trying to trick you. I was making a point. In the first food list I was aiming for total antioxidant content. Any antioxidant. Would you have guessed that if I had placed RED bell peppers in that list green peppers still would have won? Despite the colorful carotenes. That's right. If I was going for carotene and writing a list about "how to improve your eyesight" the red peppers would have been way at the top of the list! If I were to make a list like that, which I wouldn't.
In the second list I was aiming for calcium and magnesium content. So spinach wins the day. So which is more nutritious? It simply depends on your parameters and it is exactly why there does not yet exist a way to systematically rate food in terms of health and nutrition. Oh, believe me people are working on it. But it ain't easy. Foods are not magic health bullets. Green peppers, spinach, and tomatoes are all great vegetables. It would have been easy to make tomatoes win one too, wouldn't it?
The Humble Green Pepper
image by byrdiegyrl via Flickr
The point then is that top ten (or twenty) lists of the "best" vegetables or any other foods are not useful EXCEPT for the people who write them. And they write them because they know that "lists" are big hits on the webernet. It's web marketing 101. Make a list and they will come. And talk. Nutrition is not a top ten proposition. Eat your vegetables. Eat the ones you love. Hey..good news, romaine lettuce has more beta carotene than spinach. I heard you hate spinach but love the romaine!
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