White Fruits and Vegetables May Greatly Reduce Your Risk of Having a Stroke

Food colors are one of the hallmarks of eating healthy. Fruits and vegetables come in a wide variety of colors and you should eat a good variety of them to maintain your health. Remember when George Carlin talked about the absence of blue food? He said that if you think about it, there is no natural blue food. "What about blueberries?" You might ask. No, they are actually purple. Somebody must be hoarding all of the blue food and it must have some amazing properties.

Red food such as tomatoes are rich in lycopene and that is good for the prostrate. Yellow foods benefit the nervous system and help the digestive process. Green vegetables are excellent sources of vitamins A, C, and K. And we all know that blue (purple) berries are rich in antioxidants and are good for brain health.

Some white foods such as potatoes, starchy tubers, and white bread have long had a bad rap. They are rich in carbohydrates and may lack a lot of nutrients, but white fruits and vegetables are rich in beta-glucans, EGCG, SDG, and lignans that provide powerful immune boosting activity.

Now, recent reports have suggested that eating white fruits and vegetables may greatly reduce your chances of having a stroke. Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Over 143,579 people die each year from stroke in the United States and 795,000 have one and become disabled. It is the leading cause of disability in the United States.

According to Medical News Today:

"Consuming fruit with white edible portions, such as pears and apples, can reduce the risk of stroke by 52%, researchers from Wageningen Uninversity in the Netherlands wrote in the journal Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association."

The study explains that Phytochemicals in the fruits and vegetables are probably the reason for their stroke preventing activity. Phytochemicals are compounds that are present in tiny amounts in a lot of different foods and aren't registered as being nutritionally significant. So the best way to get them is to eat the food in its raw state. You can't really get them from supplements.

Of all of the white fruits, apples and pears make up about 55% of them, so adding these fruits to your diet or increasing your consumption of them may definitely help cut your risk of getting a stroke. Other white fruits and vegetables include cucumber, chicory, cauliflower and banana. The research reports that: "There was a 9% reduced risk of stroke for every 25 gram increase in daily white fruit and vegetable consumption. An average sized apple weighs about 120 grams."

So here's another argument for eating a plant-based diet. You'll lose weight and be healthier if you do.

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/234574.php