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COMMENTS & ANALYSIS
Worth Studying Other Produce Items Consumed By Pregnant Mothers
by jim prevor, editor-in-chief, produce business
Mitch Kanter’s piece explaining the nutritional benefits that potatoes can offer pregnant women is fas-
cinating, filled with many nutritional insights that often are overlooked. For the industry as a whole, though, the truth is that similar pieces could be written about many produce items. If we were to expand our scope of interest, from expectant mothers to children, the elderly, people with diabetes, on and on — we could write even more.
Indeed, studying the whole issue of the in-utero experience might well be worth the trouble.
At the New York Produce Show and Conference, we invited a very intriguing speaker named Gabriella Morini, who is an Assistant Professor at the University of Gastro- nomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy. She gave a fascinating presentation, which we wrote about in an online piece in Produce Business sister publication, PerishablePundit.com. She explained her presentation this way:
I will discuss the function of the sense of taste; the influence of taste in food preferences and food choices and there- fore on nutrition and health.
My research makes the case that vegetables are the best trainers or the optimum way to educate your sense of taste. It is critical to introduce vegetables in the diet as early as possible, not only in children but even during a mother’s pregnancy, to influence and condition taste receptors in order to establish good eating habits and good health that will last in the long term.
In the same piece, she stressed the impor- tance of early intervention in the development of taste:
Scientists have been working on studies to show that if you get people used to eating vegetables at a young age, it will change their taste prefer- ences. There is also evidence that when a mother eats vegetables during pregnancy and breast feeding, it impacts a gene of taste preference
We can only say that it is fantastic that some individual items, such as potatoes, have been studied and found so good for mother and child. We suspect that if similar research was done on many other produce items, they would also find good things.
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The problem is that it is very difficult
to change habits. We are not koalas, so we can learn what to eat and train our genetic system. Now, there are scientific papers to show that the best chance for success is to start with children or even better with pregnant mothers.
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The best time to act is when a woman
is pregnant. She pays very much atten- tion to her health and will be receptive to information on what she should eat and why it is so important. Lipids, carbohydrates and fats are present in any foods, but there are antioxidants and nutrients in vegetables that are important to human development.
Just as studies show that the music children hear during pregnancy can be influential, research shows that those introduced early to vegetables will grav- itate to those tastes. In Italy, there was a concern that when a mother was eating a lot of garlic while breastfeeding, chil- dren weren’t eating meat. That’s not the problem now. We need food less rich in easy calories.
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The produce industry organizations and
institutions tend to speak of the industry as one entity.
But when it comes to health, not all produce items are created equally, and the health imperative to increase consumption is not a uniform problem across all items.
Yes, there is room to grow the consump-
tion of snack fruits, and health would be likely improved if children foreswore cookies and cakes for clementines, grapes, apples, etc. The big shortfalls in consumption, though, is vege- tables and, especially, more bitter vegetables.
But the science as to whether a mother’s consumption of particular items when preg- nant affects the tastes of children after they are born or the tastes of children when they grow to adulthood is very uncertain.
It is a difficult test to do because people grow up in certain cultures, and it is almost impossible to separate food from the culture. In other words, there are no studies of children born from Eskimo mothers who convert to eating the Mediterranean Diet with lots of garlic and then go back to serving their family a normal Eskimo diet as part of their culture. No one has tested these Eskimo children at 18 to see if they eat more garlic than normal Eskimo children.
While the industry figures out how to fund such studies and the academics figure out how to make the studies valid ... as we seek answers to broader questions as to what age is ideal for nutritional intervention, we have to be immediately concerned with the health of pregnant women and the babies they will bear. That is why, say, pre-natal vitamins are universally recommended.
What women eat is just as important. We can only say that it is fantastic that some individual items, such as potatoes, have been studied and found so good for mother and child. We suspect that if similar research was done on many other produce items, they would also find good things.
So, as we pursue research, the safe course is a diverse diet rich in fruits and vegetables.
PRODUCE BUSINESS / AUGUST 2018 / 15