Greens protect body from lifestyle diseases
WITH lifestyle diseases on the increase, more people are turning away from processed food and eating fresh produce, particularly leafy green vegetables and fruit. However, Stellenbosch University researcher, Dr Bianke Loedolff, has warned that most people eat these healthy foods beyond their “bioactive” dates when their nutritional value has been depleted due to prolonged storage – a situation which leads to the development of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
A biofortification research initiative that Loedolff is spearheading with Professor Sharon Prince, from UCT’s Division of Cell Biology, is set to change this phenomenon, and use food as “medicine” by ensuring that it’s fortified with good nutrients still growing in the garden. They believe that this process will turn vegetables into “functional food” to prevent lifestyle diseases such as cancer.
Since last year, the two universities started biofortification of leafy greens, such as wild rocket, radishes, kale, and mustard greens. Biofortification is a process that is used to improve the nutritional content of plant-based foods or crops by means of external influences such as fertiliser application, breeding or environmental stresses.
This process differs from normal fortification of foods because it focuses on improving the nutritional profile of a plant while it is still growing, instead of adding nutrients when foods are being processed.
Researchers boosted the nutrition of these plants at micro-green stage (young stage) when plants are still highly nutritious.
“Plants at this micro-green stage are highly nutritious... they contain much more compounds or phytochemicals that are health beneficial, especially compounds that are associated with the prevention of NCDs. These phytochemicals are only found in plants,” she said.
The researchers focused on these leafy greens as they are easily accessible both commercially and in people’s gardens.
“The point is, be it seeds or plants, these vegetables are easily accessible to everyone, and are easy to grow at home, unlike many medicinal plants which are not always accessible, not easy to grow and rather expensive. A person can gain the same health benefits by incorporating leafy greens (at micro-green stage) as part of a healthy, daily regimen as they would from medicinal plants.”
She recently presented her research at the International Functional Foods Conference, held at Harvard University in the US. Her presentation showed a link between bioactive compounds in these biofortified vegetables and prevention of NCDs such as cancer.
Her research generated so much interest among conference participants from both the medical research and commercial domains that there is now more interest from other international researchers from the US and Germany to collaborate with local researchers.
“The reality is looking healthy on the outside does not always mean you are healthy on the inside. People globally suffer from the effects of malnutrition, and we are currently also faced with a concept referred to as “hidden hunger”.
“Hidden hunger occurs when people are not consuming the daily requirement of vitamins and minerals while malnutrition occurs when the diet is either too poor or too rich in certain nutrients, resulting in severe health problems and NCDs.
“These biofortified micro-greens, in my opinion, hold a very important key to people who are healthy and want to stay that way… inside and out,” she said.
Loedolff hopes to establish a nutritionally enhanced cocktail of micro-greens that could be consumed as part of a daily diet to prevent malnutrition.
“I would like to create social awareness and show scientifically to the public how your everyday garden can take care of your health. These micro-greens are already popular as simply gourmet garnish, but it offers so much more than that,” she said.