Get more than just the ‘essentials’ from your diet

To prevent nutrient deficiency diseases, like scurvy, you need to eat food that provides all of the “essential nutrients.”

But to be as healthy as you can be, you need to eat food that is rich in health-promoting “nonessential” nutrients, as well.

The best way to do this is to fill up on fresh fruits and vegetables, and the best place to get them is the Madison Farmers’ Market.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are a great source of vitamin C, which is a powerful antioxidant. The human body desperately needs vitamin C but has forgotten how to make it. So we need to get it from our food. If you don’t get any vitamin C, you will come down with a specific disease, called scurvy. That’s why vitamin C is considered an “essential nutrient:” it has to come from your food, and if you don’t get any, you come down with a specific “deficiency disease.

In contrast, lycopene is not considered to be an essential nutrient. Lycopene is the pigment that makes tomatoes red. Like vitamin C, it is an antioxidant. However, scientists can’t cause any specific disease by feeding people a lycopene-free diet. Nor can scientists cure any specific disease by giving lycopene to people who have little or no lycopene in their system. Nevertheless, lycopene seems to be very good for you. People who eat a diet that is naturally rich in lycopene tend to have a lower risk for cancer, heart disease, and a sight-robbing eye disease called macular degeneration.

In other words, you could prevent the known “deficiency diseases” by taking your vitamins in pill form, but you can achieve optimum health only by eating lots of vegetables and fruit. Fruit and vegetables provide all of the known vitamins except for vitamin B12, which is made by bacteria, and vitamin D, which your body can make for itself if you get even a moderate amount of sunshine on your skin in the spring, summer, and fall.

Vegetables and fruits also provide all of the essential minerals, which they absorb from the soil.

Plants use the same machinery and the same genetic codebook for making protein that animals do, so any reasonable plant-based diet also provides all of the protein that you need, including all of the essential amino acids. People who get enough calories from any diet based on vegetables and unrefined starches automatically get enough protein.

People who eat a low-fat, high-fiber diet rich in fruits and vegetables tend to live longer, healthier lives. If they buy their “Jersey Fresh” produce at the Madison Farmers’ Market, they also help preserve the environment, burning a lot less fossil fuel. Regardless of whether you think that’s “essential,” it’s very nice.



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