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American Morning
Can Eating Fruits and Vegetables Reduce the Risk of Cancer?
Aired July 17, 2001 - 09:24 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, your mother told you to eat your fruits and vegetables. And you've only heard that about a thousand times. And that is still good advice, believe it or not. More and more studies suggest that including lots of fresh vegetables, fruits and whole grains in your diet may help prevent some forms of cancer. And this morning, we're going to talk about the role of nutrition and maintaining your health and preventing disease.
All right. Joining us this morning is Colleen Doyle. She is Director of Nutrition and Physical Activity for the American Cancer Society. And as you can see here, she didn't come empty handed.
COLLEEN DOYLE, DIRECTOR OF NUTRITION AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY: Oh no, lots of -- lots of fruits and vegetables and low-fat, high-fiber foods.
HARRIS: All right. Now tell -- well listen, you're going to talk to a guy right now whose mother has been spending the last 30- plus years trying to sell him on this idea. You make the best pitch: What is it about vegetables that makes the guys -- that should make people like me
(CROSSTALK)
DOYLE: Well, you have a very smart mother. We know that about a third of all cancer deaths are related to what we eat or don't eat and how active we are. And for the majority of us who don't smoke, what we eat and our activity habits really are the best way we have to reduce our risk of cancer. And the good news is all these things will also help reduce your risk of heart disease, help you maintain a healthy weight, diabetes.
HARRIS: Is the evidence totally clear and incontrovertible about vegetables and cancer?
DOYLE: There is -- there is...
HARRIS: I've heard so many different reports. I mean in one week or one year or one month you hear one report that says it does, the next one it says it doesn't.
DOYLE: That's right, but the bottom line is is that when you look at all of the evidence over time, it's very strong that plenty of fruits and vegetables, watching your fat, especially from animal products, getting activity, watching alcohol consumption is really the best defense you have against chronic disease.
HARRIS: All right, let's start out with the bad stuff -- I'm sorry, let's start with the good stuff, all right, the veggies.
DOYLE: The good stuff.
HARRIS: Now explain to me about these and why these particular choices you have here?
DOYLE: The fruits and vegetables I have here really are the ones that have the most color and the most cancer-fighting nutrients. Lots of phytochemicals, antioxidants that protect your cells...
HARRIS: Is the color...
DOYLE: ... against cell damage.
HARRIS: The color is the tip here.
DOYLE: Absolutely. So when you select fruits and vegetables, go in general for the ones that have the most color.
HARRIS: OK.
DOYLE: The broccoli, the tomatoes, the carrots, the peppers, those have the most cancer-fighting nutrients in them.
HARRIS: All right. Well, let me ask you about frozen vegetables...
DOYLE: OK.
HARRIS: ... because I've heard different reports, again, about, you know, one that says one thing one month. I've heard, in some cases, frozen vegetables are actually better than the fresh ones.
DOYLE: In some cases they are. Sometimes by the time that fruit or vegetable leaves the farm, gets to your store, gets to your table, Vitamin C may be pretty much gone by that time.
HARRIS: OK.
DOYLE: So in some instances, our frozen vegetables, our canned fruits and vegetables may have more nutrition than even fresh.
HARRIS: OK. All right. I can buy that one.
DOYLE: Good. Good.
HARRIS: All right. How about the fruits you've got here?
DOYLE: The -- one thing that's really important for cancer prevention is we want people to try to eat at least five or more servings of fruits and vegetables everyday. And the first thing people say is, oh my gosh, I can never do that. Five, that's way too many. So what -- you're one of those people? Well, listen right here and take a look.
(CROSSTALK)
DOYLE: You know at breakfast time you have a small glass of juice, a banana on your cereal maybe?
HARRIS: Yes.
DOYLE: There's two servings. For lunch you have a sandwich where you put some tomato and lettuce on. Dinner, a small salad small, bit of broccoli with some peppers in. There's your five a day. It's real easy to do.
HARRIS: All right. We've got to jump real quick,...
DOYLE: Real easy to do.
HARRIS: ... I want to ask you about the meat. Now what about the meat? You've got...
DOYLE: Oh, the meat. You know everyone -- lots of people love to eat meat, and what we see now our portion sizes are getting bigger.
HARRIS: Yes.
DOYLE: So we're not saying don't eat meat, but we are trying to get people to watch their portion sizes. This is not cooked, you can see, but we look for people to consume three to four ounces of meat.
HARRIS: That's it?
DOYLE: That's it. That's it.
HARRIS: I could floss with that. What is that?
DOYLE: That's not true. Lots of fruits and vegetables around, whole grains, too.
HARRIS: All right.
DOYLE: Three to four -- three to four ounce servings of meat, plenty of protein, plenty of nutrients in there and helps you watch that saturated fat intake. One thing too, we always encourage people -- there's lots of talk about eating turkey and chicken and there's lots of ground turkey and ground chicken products.
HARRIS: Right.
DOYLE: You really want to look for ground turkey breast or chicken breast that way you know it's lower in fat.
HARRIS: All right, we're going to have to go. We've run out of time this morning.
Thanks for beating us up -- or beating me up on the vegetables.
DOYLE: Thank you.
HARRIS: Good advice and listen to her, listen to your mom.
Colleen Doyle, thanks much for the advice.
DOYLE: Thank you.
HARRIS: We appreciate it.
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