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Green vegetables vs oranges
Ive been wondering if some green vegetables and herbs might be ok once Vitamin A has been depleted. They have many necessary cofactors like Vitamin K, Vitamin C, vitamin e, etc.
This study conducted in Indonesia concluded that Vitamin A activity was far higher in fruits than even vegetables like leafy greens and carrots. Vitamin A activity when consuming fruit was 50% higher than when consuming vegetables.
Orange fruit is more effective than are dark-green, leafy vegetables in increasing serum concentrations of retinol and beta-carotene in schoolchildren in Indonesia.
If I am remembering correctly, Dr. Smith has said that when it comes to colors from carotenoids that green seems to be the least problematic. I don't think it matters if a fruit or veg. Orange and red carotenoids are supposed to be the worst. I agree with some here to be suspicious of what Dr. Smith claims but I think he is probably right more than he is wrong.
I don’t think it’s just color, because this study used carrots alongside the green vegetables. Oranges also have much less vitamin A than green vegetables and carrots, and yet, oranges release more retinol and beta carotene into the serum than the veggies. There is definitely more to the story than just color. Digestibility, fat content of diet, sugar content, heavy metals, fiber content, all seem to influence how vitamin A interacts once ingested. I am wondering if all that extra beta carotene is somehow cleaved and excreted before it is even absorbed.
I didn't say that color was the only thing that mattered all I was addressing was which carotenoids (which have different colors) are more damaging than others.
Quote from Guest on December 18, 2018, 4:19 pmI didn't say that color was the only thing that mattered all I was addressing was which carotenoids (which have different colors) are more damaging than others.
I was simply saying that according to this study there is clear difference between carrots and oranges, and surprisingly oranges do a better job of raising serum retinol and beta carotene levels. This is despite carrots being far richer in color and beta carotene. Isn’t that something? In terms of which are more damaging, the carotenes have to be absorbed in the first place.
I haven't completely eliminated food containing vitamin A. I sometimes consume 1 or 2 maximum per day to monitor my tolerance.
I tolerated well string beans whether yellow or green over the weekend. I felt a bit off, but nothing extreme.
Yesterday, I had about 1/4 of a bell pepper and oh boy did I react. My skin was itchy, I was cold, my feet were freezing, my insomnia worsened (I had blood sugar issues during the night)...
Peppers are in the nightshade family and are spicy even a bell pepper is spicy (at least to me) so they are among the top of the list as far as problem causing via vA. Sometimes plants that are green also have many other carotenoids but you can't see those colors because the green masks them. This is behind why some trees change color in the fall.
Not saying that capsaicin (or other spicy compound if any) is a carotenoid, just that it seems to go with high vA.
I don't react much to tomato products or potatoes, so I would bet on capsaicin being a troublemaker.
Fruits are more digestible than vegetables. I suspect the results would look different if the subjects received juice instead of whole vegetable/fruit. Carrots especially are very fibrous, and unless you cook it for a long time or juice it a lot of it will just pass through undigested. Carrots also have some natural anti-biotics which will make it even harder for fermenting bacteria in the intestines to break it down.
The only reason fruits/vegetables that have a lot of carotenoids look green instead of orange is because they also have a lot of chlorophyll, and the chlorophyll is more green than carotene is red, so to speak.