Fresh veggies day an opportunity to explore new foods

On this episode of the Post Podcast, Fort Hays State University's Glen McNeil shares information about fresh veggies on National Fresh Veggie Day.

 

Transcript:

EDITORS NOTE: Transcripts are provided by an automated service and are not verified for accuracy.

 

James Bell 

Fresh veggies day is an opportunity to explore fresh veggies for naysay universities. Glenn McNeil joins us to talk a little bit about that. And more on this episode of the Post Podcast.

 

Glen McNeil 

June 16. Every year is also national fresh batch.

 

James Bell 

That's probably a little healthier than well,

 

Glen McNeil 

very few people know that. Oh, because the first thing if you type in what is June 16, it comes up as national budget. Yeah, you know, nobody really looks any further.

 

James Bell 

Exactly. I got my excuse for the day. I'm gonna go eat some fudge and celebrate today.

 

Glen McNeil 

There's there's a few other things too. I'm not. Sometimes you so okay, I'm not a big fan. Butterscotch fudge. I like marshmallow fudge.

 

James Bell 

I like yeah, the creamy.

 

Glen McNeil 

Yeah, I don't really like nuts. A lot of people like nuts and fudge. And I do like to take fudge and take an old cheese shredder. Shredded real fine. Put it on ice cream, and put marshmallow cream on top of the ice cream. So yes, I do eat fudge. Okay, not a lot. I eat more fresh vegetables than I do fudge.

 

James Bell 

And that's what everybody should do. Yeah, more vegetables than more than more vegetables than fudge

 

Glen McNeil 

but nothing wrong with you know, eating some foods as we've always talking here. Moderation and all things you know, include a little bit of everything you like in your diet, in essence, what you eat, but at the same time, focus a little more on the more healthful items like vegetables and being national fresh vegetables. You know, that's the kicker in this is that encourage people to eat fresh vegetables. We have frozen, which are excellent quality, we have canned, which are very good quality. Okay, we have dehydrated vegetables these days, which are they fit well in soups and things like that, that you want to make that have a lot of liquid, but it's still pretty hard to beat the taste, the texture, the mouthfeel of fresh vegetables, you know, so So that's, that's a big one. When we look at it. There's four, there's lots of vegetables. I mean, the list, depending upon how you categorize things is huge. But there's four major types. When we look at vegetables, we've got root vegetables, okay, and root vegetable would be what's the root vegetable, always think of potatoes. Okay, potatoes is an example of a root vegetable, because what you're actually eating is part of the root. In most cases, you're eating the starch, which is the sugar the plant has stored for continued growth. So that's in so when it comes up the next year, it will come up so that root vegetables is basically it's the underground part of the plant that we consume. Okay, and many of them are I mean carrots is a standby that vegetable, beets if you if you like beets turnips,

 

James Bell 

I was I went to the farmers market the other day and talking with a couple of vendors, I know there and they had some beats. And I don't know that I've ever had them. They but they pushed him on me and said you got to take these home and try him because if you if the only thing you've ever experienced, it's like pickled beets, you might not be a fan, but there's so many other things you can do with them. Yes.

 

Glen McNeil 

Sweet beets. Excellent. Make in terms of pickled beets is not not that difficult to do. So you know, that's, that's what you you get with those onions fit into root vegetables you know, of course and so, so we get that root vegetables are okay, since they're a vegetable they are plant product. They do contain they're primarily starch, but they do contain a small amount of protein. But what's big today is red vegetables contain no gluten. So you'll see root vegetables advertised as a part of a healthy free gluten diet. Well, they never did contain gluten, they don't contain. So that's that's really not not a big deal. Red vegetables, overall good sources of vitamin A. Many of them are good sources of vitamin C. Of course, they're they're great sources of fiber, which can benefit all of us and many of them have high potassium value, which is good for the heart, okay and circulation and I mean muscle contraction, another group of things, okay. Then then we have what we call the cruciferous vegetables. Most people know the cruciferous vegetables as gas formers. Because when you eat a surface festivals, your body tends to produce a lot of gas. Okay, they're, they're a rather large groups are the diverse, most of most people think of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, okay, when they think of the cruciferous vegetables, which you've got kale, you've got bok choy, which both kale and bok choy can easily be purchased in grocery stores these days. And they're kales like a leafy product. But bok choy is a type of cabbage that is not quite as, say bitter as regular cabbages and it's more in the shape of celery than what we consider to be head of cabbage. It's really easy to work with brussel sprouts. Good Good what not too many people around here eat but when we lived in in Kentucky and when my son lived in Louisiana collards were big and you hear used to hear collard greens well, okay, they're also greens and they're also cruciferous vegetables. It's a it's a bitter type of leaf that you cook kind of long lines of spinach. Okay, and in terms that depends on what you do with it, watercress, things like that, and I did bring you since it is fresh vegetable today. I did bring you a cruciferous vegetable out of my garden. Okay, I'm not much of a garden out of my garden that I have been. We have been eating ready. And just to show you that it is oh wow festival. I picked it right before we came and I washed it

 

James Bell 

was washed so I can eat this wash. This is a good looking.

 

Glen McNeil 

It is a what

 

James Bell 

is it? Well, I think it's a radish, sir. Okay, it's already circular. To judge your radish. It

 

Glen McNeil 

always depends on it depends on how you plan them and when you pick up Yeah, as to how they grow.

 

James Bell 

Yeah, I've never had a fresh garden radish. I love radishes. I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna bite into our air.

 

Glen McNeil 

Now, everybody listening Did you hear that crunch when he brought it into it? Okay, that vegetables should be what we call crisp tender. They should have a Christmas and a crunch time. Now what do you think of my radish? That is a spicy radish. Yes it is. I like that. That's the good part about the variety that that I planted in. Anybody can go radishes I have a tub that is two feet by four feet. And I filled it with garden soil and I put roses in it and I've watered and I grow radishes in my little tub. As I go through and I pick out a row I just dropped more seeds in and then I pick out a row so I didn't have to fill up a whole bunch of the garden I got it in a spot that's full sun can water you know the watering can easy to groove so growing many root vegetables is not a difficult process. You simply have to have something deep enough that allows the root to to develop good carrots grown in my in my radish garden could only be about maybe two inches deeper than that. But yeah, so radishes are now these cruciferous vegetables are lots of different colors so they add variety to your diet in color. Okay, as you look at that thing and so many some of the root vegetables do this to cruciferous vegetables, good sources of both vitamins and minerals, especially one great mineral is white is folate, okay, which is good for ourselves is as we age, especially good for developing fetal cells, regeneration of cells, folate or folic acid. So the cruciferous vegetables are high in that there also many of them are good sources of vitamin K. Okay, which is the vitamin, you know, Vitamin K does a lot of different things in the body. The biggest thing that most people know is that it helps with blood clotting. Okay, so you know, we have that particular process. They've got vitamin C in them, they've got some vitamin A in them. They're also the group that's biggest in what we call the phytonutrients. And we've talked about phytonutrients and phytochemicals here before and these are, these are not nutrients like vitamins and minerals. They're chemical compounds. They're plant compounds that our body uses for its benefit. They give us some anti carcinogenic properties, they, they help deal with antioxidant, they help ourselves recover. So they're used in metabolism, but they're not vitamins and minerals. So it's kind of a different type of thing that we do. Many of the cruciferous vegetables can help lower inflammation. Okay, so you know, we find that and again, again, they're rich in fiber. Okay, so as you eat both root and cruciferous vegetables, they can help you feel fuller, consume less food overall. Right? And they have some natural sugars in them, but not not a lot. That is cruciferous vegetables are often called gasp producing vegetables. And what causes that and people and especially when you look at broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. All the time. I can't eat that good. Yes, me. Yes. Okay, well, that comes from a sugar, right? And it's a sugar called raffinose. Right? It is a sugar that not very sweet. We would really use it for anything else. But it's, it's part of the carbohydrate structure in the plant. Right the plant uses it stores it uses it for growth, we do not have the ability to convert raffinose and use it for energy by our body like we can sucrose or or table sugar or glucose, blood sugar, we can't do that. So what happens is the raffinose stage in your gut, right? And it goes pretty much kind of through the stomach, a little bit of activity in the stomach passes through the small intestine bacteria starts to operate on it gets into the large intestine. And what the bacteria in the large intestine does is it breaks everything else down and we get the last nutrients. Well this bacteria in this nice warm, moist environment feeds on raffinose and produces large amounts of gas Yes. So you have gas and you'll feel bloated. Now, most of the time, gas from these types of products is non odorous. Okay? And it's very difficult to control the release of the gas because it's like, Okay, here's a small pocket of raffinose going through the intestinal going through the large intestine. And this bacteria sees it jumps all over it, breaks it down and produces gas very quickly. Okay, so you feel bloated, and you got to release it. So I can't use to say, Grandma toots. My mother consumed a very high fiber diet, just health wise and Yes, Grandma, you know, achieve always left. So, you know, we find out and we see that so, you know, we read vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, then we have a big category called greens. Right? And greens are

 

James Bell 

everything else. Well, that's what like lettuce and I

 

Glen McNeil 

put they're called greens because they're, well, green primary. Yes, yeah. We're primarily grant make sense. Okay. So in in a way, you could say that radish has greens on cook those radish tops, we really wouldn't want to they're kind of bitter. You know, so we want to do that. But, you know, when we look at greens, it's, it's collard greens, which are also part of cruciferous for root vegetables. It's just eating the different parts of the vegetable. Okay, and that's where the Greens come from kale, mustard greens, chard, bok choy that the Chinese cabbage fits in that too. So because you eat different parts of it. Okay, so when you eat the top, you're eating the greens, when you eat the bottom, you're eating the right. And you can't do that with all vegetables. Okay, you can do that with some but you can't do that with all this. Okay, there's another product out that's been out round for years generations known as rocket and it's actually argument. Okay, and it is it's a leaf off of a product or a plant that how do I say this? It's got a mustard. If you ever mix mustard and pepper together and toss in a little tiny bit of white vinegar, it's kind of what it tastes like. So it's sweetened bitter at the same time. It's used as a topping for salads. We don't most people don't buy much of it. You probably have to go ask for it here and I don't know whether anybody would have okay from from that. And then you're good right now. Got in your yard field over there and pick some dandelion greens. I have

 

James Bell 

a friend he swears by dandelions he loves He says they're great for the soil. They're great for you. You can eat it all and he doesn't eat a lot of them I don't think anyway but but he loves growing them he will plant his yard with dandelions.

 

Glen McNeil 

You can harvest dandelion greens and that's fine you just got to be make sure if you're gonna go somewhere and pick him that nobody sprayed anything Yeah. Okay, so yeah, red vegetables cruciferous vegetables and greens. Okay, then we have the last and there are other categories these are the four major categories I like that it's a group called Nightshade. Okay and people have heard of nightshade vegetables and the most famous of all the nightshade vegetables and not even a vegetable Oh yeah. The most famous of all nightshade vegetables is not even a vegetable in in many and not I want to say Mideast What do you call it mid times you know back in the old days of castles and kings and fives. Okay, these were thought to be poisonous. They're red and color.

 

James Bell 

Radishes No I'm just kidding this tomatoes I know this one.

 

Glen McNeil 

But you know what? Tomato tomato is a fruit.

 

James Bell 

Okay, because the seeds are on the inside right since grow it

 

Glen McNeil 

comes from blossom. And it's different on how it comes from the blossom. Okay, it goes behind and the seeds the the meat of the product surrounds the seed. When that happens we actually have a fruit okay, that fits in that category. So we have fruits and vegetables that fit into the nightshade group. Okay, and the nightshade group has its its name because many of them are very flavorful. Okay and whatever they are, and they are products that tend to grow better overnight that they do during the day. So the name nightshade came around came around what because they thought there was some sort of an holy thing going on with this plant where it would grow overnight but would grow during the day like all the rest of the plants are growing right so became a Nightshade. That's, I mean, that's folklore. sure that when they do grow better at night, if you ever watch your check your tomatoes or anything, you get up in the morning and there's blossoms all over, you know or something like that. These products grow better as temperature cools down, and then they reserve their moisture for the day. Now nightshade vegetables eggplants an example of a nightshade vegetable potatoes are actually an example but it fits in many other categories. Probably the most recognized one today are peppers all the different varieties of peppers fit within the nightshade vegetables. Now there's also one that most people don't think about and that's tobacco. Okay, but oh yeah, we don't eat tobacco you can try

 

James Bell 

I'm curious now what tobacco actually tastes like if you're eat some well it's

 

Glen McNeil 

it's not a fruit. It's not a vegetable. It's a nightshade plant. It grows better through the night. Okay, so but it fits I always thought that was interesting. I don't eat okay for that. Now the other thing about nightshade plants is that they contain most of the nightshade plants contain some form of what we call an alkaloid. Okay, and out alkaloid? How do I want to put this? There are chemicals similar to proteins but a little different? Okay, and they're high in nitrogen. Okay, well, that's the nitrogen composition. With everything else that's in this alkaloid that has an effect upon the human body. Okay. And, and what we find is they're kind of medicinal, we can make a lot of medicinal things out of Morphe is made from a nightshade alkaloid. As an example of what we fit in there. Quinine is another product that fits into that. So we, you know, we see this and so as this goes on, we find that some of these alkaloids also fit into the phytonutrients category, where they can give us some protective aspects against cancers. So it's, I mean, it's good for us and in terms of that, but it can also be bad for us. If you get too much they can cause headaches. They can cause bitter taste in foods and cause gastric upset, nausea, diarrhea, and in most cases, you can identify when a a dark colored plant gets this potatoes are famous for this. You pick up a potato and it's got green circle or green spots all over people who say Well, that's sunburn tomato. Oh, yeah, it's kind of a suppose. But what that is, is that contains because of the chemical interactions that have occurred, that contains an alcohol alkaloid called solid, the green part of the tomato, that's what can make you sick. Okay, so if you ate lots of green potatoes, now, you could peel that part of the skin into potato, lay and cut it away and use the rest of the potato and that's fine. Now, you're not going to get this from eating one or two green potatoes, okay, you'd have to eat quite a bit or you'd have to eat quite a bit of a of a vegetable that's showing this process. So those are our four main categories that we look at when we buy when we fix vegetables and so for this, okay, and I brought you a fresh vegetable from my garden. Okay to show you how much I appreciate you and also when I appreciate you so well thank you but I wanted somebody else to teach you one of my hot radishes. Yeah, it's good. So first first step in using fresh vegetables. Make sure once you buy or pick are not bruised or damaged. Look them over carefully. Now it always drives me nuts when you go in and people are feeling all the with all the different vegetables and everything but you know you don't want things that have soft spots in them and they should be firm all the way round. This color slices that type of thing. Don't buy him if they're bruised or damaged. Second thing is clean. Wash your hands with soap and water. Then wash your vegetables right your vegetables off with water. There's all these vegetable rinses and washes out there you can use what what most of the science tells us is there not a whole lot better than water. In terms what many of them are is they're really really heavily diluted bleach. Okay, so the even if you read some off of those, you still gotta rinse them off with water. So just make sure you rinse them off good. And actually a little vegetable brush like I pulled out of ground I get a little vegetable rush put it in some running water and brush it off and slice the top off at the bottom and it's ready to eat. Okay from from that process. So watch that. Alright Third, when you go through this process, when you shop, okay or when you go to the farmers market to buy, separate what you purchase. Here we get into also into the preparation. We've talked in here a number of times about cross contamination, keep fresh vegetables away from raw meats, raw poultry, raw anything, handle them separately. Go to the grocery store watching when they get their groceries they put the most of them are very careful about it. Sometimes they aren't. They put the chicken in the bottom and then dump in the fresh vegetables on top of it. I always say at what my meats in separate bags. I want my chicken in one bag, my beef and another bag. I don't want anything else in the bag with bags, things like that at the grocery store. keep them separate at home. Okay, don't use a cutting board for raw meats. And then put raw vegetables on your cutting board. Okay, and then serve. Just be safe you know, watch for the content elimination. Cooking is the same thing. Now cooking with vegetables. You want vegetables to be what we call all dented. Chris, tender, green, fresh green beans that are cooked until they're mushy and fall apart or overcooked. A lot of people like them that way but they're over cooked. Okay from that so boiling, steaming boiling, you know for a short period of time steaming, microwave, great way to go. Okay when you're cooking fresh vegetables if you're gonna cook, and many times cooking helps break down some of the raffinose Vegetable so it will help make cabbage less gas producing. It will, it will in many cases cooking vegetables creates milder flavors within the vegetables. If you've ever fresh broccoli and cooked fresh broccoli, there is a definite difference in the taste. Okay, of those two products, even if they're both annulled, right. Okay, step five, chill things. If you bring a bunch of vegetables in the garden from the garden, or bring them home from the store and you wash them off, put them in the refrigerator, bag them up, you know, wrap them in a towel bowl, with water out, whatever, put them back in your frigerator keep them chilled, just helps prevent any bacterial growth or anything that can occur around them. And most fresh vegetables that are chilled, still have good flavor. Some of the flavors get a little bit better as they warm up kind of like cheese. Okay, but some still still do that. And then I'm gonna go back to when in doubt, throw it out. If you're not sure how old it is, if it's sat out on the counter for a vegetable dip or something for a couple of hours, good idea to pitch it, you know, because of contamination you're dealing with a raw food product here. Okay, so you just want to do that. You know, if you've had something if you're not going to cook it if it's been in contact with raw if you're going to serve it Ron it's been in contact with Rami you messed up, well cook it don't kill the bacteria, okay, you cook it but be very careful. And we just tell people do that around around holiday time. Fresh vegetables cleaned, put in the refrigerator will keep for many will keep for a week and maintain their freshness. I always put my radishes in a bowl of water and set them in the refrigerator and they'll stay crisp and fresh for about six days. Okay, they don't last six days because I eat them all. Okay, but you know, in terms of like that, and I, I don't think you can beat the flavor of many of the fresh vegetables out there to take a green or a yellow pepper and just wash it, see it, slice it up and stack on it. Now for a lot of people that's a lot of spice, but I think that that makes a good taste. And then nothing better to me than ever daily onion, peeled cooldown peeled, sliced it nice big round pieces. And then you put a piece of sharp cheddar cheese on top of their daily onion and sharp cheddar cheese, or just eat an onion like an apple. People don't like that. lettuce leaves. You know, if you're looking for a way to lighten sandwich meals, lettuce leaves make great replacement for bread. Oh yeah, I love doing that. Cook a hamburger patty and put your hamburger patty between two lettuce leaves and, and whatever whatever else you want it and it really makes a nice little pocket and the same is true with camis leaves. So lots of fresh vegetables. They're coming into their own. You know I look my cucumbers. My cucumber plants have got little cucumbers on them about two inches long already. My tomato plants are covered in blooms but no, no tomatoes yet. By being planets are growing. It's early for beans I plant. I'm trying I've never planted beans before. So I played in pole beans this year. So I got these big pots scattered around the yard being planted poles sticking up and up. That's how I garden I don't really have it all in the ground, I think big pots and bends around. That works. Yeah. So it works but Grow Your Own go to the farmers market, buy them into grocery store. They're, they're great, you know, and he's right now you can go into grocery store, you can buy a platter of clean vegetables, you know fresh vegetables that you can snack on. And they make great snacks for people. Absolutely. I hope people enjoy them all summer long. You know, just be smart, be safe. Eat the ones you really like and occasionally buy one you've never had before. Look, look up how to prepare it. Okay, that's always important. Sometimes the vegetable preparation is not as standard as we think. And then sample it. You know, and if you don't like it raw, chop it up. Toss it in the skillet, a little olive oil on a top little onion with salt and pepper crack couple eggs in it. Sprinkle some cheddar cheese on it. And you got a nice little mix of vegetables you did like most with eggs and cheese you do like There you go. So have a great summer.