Queen Garnet plums and purple carrots are both being grown for anthocyanin, a powerful antioxidant that can be used as a red food colorant or drunk as a juice. A variety of broccoli has been developed that contains 40 per cent more active antioxidants than regular broccoli. There is a variety of sweet corn that contains 10 times the normal level of zeaxanthin, which inhibits macular degeneration in the eye. There are tomatoes containing high levels of lycopene, which helps prevent prostate cancer. And there are varieties of apples containing three times normal levels of antioxidants. And that’s just in Australia. Internationally there are many more such examples.
The significance of this is difficult to overestimate. Dietary guidelines recommend at least half our plates should comprise fruit and vegetables and add up to five portions every day, yet few men and not all that many women go along with it.
Men in particular make jokes about steak being a vegetable since it is merely grass reconstituted by cattle, and beer being a vegetarian drink because it is made from barley and hops. As Alex Levine said: “Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.”
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If horticulture producers could stop worrying about protecting the Australian market and focus on how they might capture new markets, and perhaps even create new ones by making the nutritional benefits of fruit and vegetables available to more people, they could compete against the Kiwis on any field they chose.
All they have to do is lose a bit of weight and get fit.
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