Though fighting an epic uphill battle, the Florida Department of Citrus is trying to get the good news about grapefruit out there.
Earlier this year, department-funded research found that women age 19 and older who consume grapefruit tend to have significantly greater intakes of several key nutrients, including vitamin C, potassium, dietary fiber, beta-carotene, magnesium and vitamin B6 than those who don’t consume grapefruit.
What’s next for grapefruit? The grim per-capita consumption numbers are not encouraging, no doubt. And the periodic alarming news stories about grapefruit interaction with drugs aren’t likely to disappear, even as the number of pill-popping Americans increases.
We need the top minds of the fresh produce industry to reverse this slide in grapefruit consumption. Still, it may be an impossible task.
Think about it: When was the last time you had a grapefruit or grapefruit juice? For me, it has been quite a while, and I don’t even take any pills (yet).
It’s time for me to put grapefruit back on the shopping list.
The first person I’m putting on the task force for reviving grapefruit demand is the reader who suggested to “drop the drugs, keep the grapefruit.” Depending on what medicines you are taking, that may be sound advice.
Better yet, all of us who are not yet on prescription medications that clash with grapefruit should let one of Mother Nature’s finest fruits work its magic now.
Perhaps in that process we can avoid the dozens of medications that will arbitrarily take grapefruit and grapefruit juice off our shopping list.
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Moms are viewed as heroic when they serve vegetables to their family.
Not like Captain America spandex and cape status, perhaps, but a hero nonetheless.
A new Cornell University study published in Public Health Nutrition surveyed 500 U.S. mothers. The participants rated the personality of women who either prepared or did not prepare vegetables with a family meal and rated four different meals that either included or did not include a vegetable, according to a press release about the study.
The addition of vegetables helped increase the positive response in multiple ways, making the meal seem more “complete,” “loving,” “tasty,” and prepared with more effort or thought. Respondents also rated the vegetable-preparing mothers as more loving and thoughtful and less boring or selfish.
I see two sides to this research.
Sure, we can focus on the fact that moms who serve vegetables are noble. But why not guilt the many mothers who aren’t living up to the standard?
How about a tagline like “Supermoms serve veggies, lazy moms don’t”?
tkarst@thepacker.com
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