Turning green

By Allison Askins, of McClatchy Newspapers - 08/01/2007

Light green food like honeydew melon, green grapes and kiwi help improve vision, health and strengthening of bones and teeth. Kim Kim Foster-Tobin / The State / MCT.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Cool and soothing. That’s what light green foods say. And in summer’s heat, that’s a welcome message.

Light green foods such as green grapes, kiwi and honeydew also offer phytochemicals such as lutein and indoles. Phytochemicals are naturally occurring protective components found in plants that are thought to contribute to plant health and human health.

In green foods, you will find nutrients that might lower the risk of some cancers, help keep your eyes healthy and build strength in your bones and teeth.

So why not keep dinner simple and healthy tonight? Slice a kiwifruit and combine it with turkey, papaya, almond slivers and spinach leaves for a cool salad.

Or toss together honeydew, green grapes and kiwi to create an all-green fruit salad. Add a touch of yogurt or fruit juice to bind the salad ingredients together.

You also can create a yummy side salad of grapes, sour cream, brown sugar and cognac, as recommended in the recipe from Honey Flow Farm, a vineyard and honey farm in Dryden, Mich. (honeyflowfarm.com). You will find oodles of other grape recipes at this site, too.

Grapes, kiwi and honeydew are all low in saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol and high in Vitamins C and moisture content. Kiwi is particularly high in dietary fiber and a great source of potassium.

Diabetics will need to watch their intake of these sweet fruits, which have a high carbohydrate content, but they should not eliminate such healthy options from their diet, said Susan Frost, a registered dietitian and fruit and vegetable nutrition coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Instead, Frost said, diabetics should eat a fruit such as honeydew with a meal rather than as a snack on its own. The protein in the rest of the meal will provide the needed nutritional balance.

‘‘In their natural state, fruits and vegetables have high water and fiber content and are naturally low in calories and energy-density, which is good thing,’’ Frost said. ‘‘Foods that are high in fat content are high in energy-density.’’

Take potato chips, where ‘‘we get a lot more calories per gram of food,’’ she explained.

While a cup of melon has very few calories, ‘‘in this case, low energy-density is a good thing,’’ she said.

So for a healthy treat today, try a cup of grapes, a freshly sliced kiwi or a honeydew granita.

Such light, sweet fruits are sure to provide relief from July’s muggy heat.

Other light green foods