Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said the Homegrown, Homegrown Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said, we food , we food, come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

From the earth to the dirt, come let we till up the soil, till up the soil, from the earth to the dirt, come let we keep planting on a while.

You see the homegrown I said it come from earth.

I say the good food come make me plant me we own.

I say the good food, good food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said I food, I food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said, Your food, your food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said the Homegrown, Homegrown Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

Hi, I'm Carlos Robles the UVI Cooperative Extension Service and welcome to Home Grown.

And today's show, we're going to talk about nutrition and going how some of the vegetables that we've been growing in our gardens, the role they play in our overall health and in some ways how to prepare them.

So that you can get the best out of them.

Joining me today is Dr. Carol Johnson.

She's with the Family and Consumer Science Program of the Cooperative Extension Service, where she's the program supervisor.

And she's going to help us with all of that information Carol.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you very much, Carol.

Good.

Good to see you.

We're going to get right into it and look at the the things that we have here in this bowl, this gorgeous bowl of greens and stuff, the things that we have grown.

So what I'm going to do then is pick out a couple of the of the items that we have here.

Let's start with this bok choy.

Okay.

And tell me a little bit about the nutritional value of this bok choy.

Some of the growers were growing it.

I know it's I've seen it in Chinese food, but what do we need to know about this particular vegetable?

Okay.

Yeah.

Bok choy is used in a lot of the Oriental cooking, but anybody can of course use that.

It has the dark green, leafy vegetables and the most important thing to remember is when you go to the grocery store or when you're growing in your garden, look for bright green and dark green because it has a good source of vitamin A and also vitamin C. Okay, So is vitamin E generally associated with dark green vegetables?

Vitamin A is associated with the dark green vegetables.

So that's a key.

Okay.

To know if you select the dark green, that's a good source of vitamin S. Okay.

And the bok choy can be used.

I use it just fresh, just like it is.

I chop it up and put a salad dressing over, preferably olive oil and vinegar and some spices.

You can chop it up and put it in a super store.

So it's really a wonderful and I guess it can be steamed just like some of the other green vegetables.

Yeah.

However, but if you had never tried it and by the way, I believe isn't it easy to grow here?

It's fairly easy to grow because some of the gardeners, in fact, one of the participants forgot to water her bok choy for about a week and when she came back it was really wilted and all she did was pour water on it.

And in a matter of 50 minutes, you would have not have believed that that plant was looking really worked.

So if you are gardening and you're looking for one of those crops, that's very forgiving, this is one of them that you can grow.

It'll make you look like a pro.

All right.

All right.

Let's take a look at some of the others.

Well, here's another green one.

But this is a lighter green one.

This is a loose leaf.

Lettuce.

Yeah, this is leaf last.

It has the red tips on it.

Leaf lettuce is fine.

Please don't get the head lettuce, which we call iceberg.

Iceberg?

Yes.

It doesn't have any nutritional value.

Okay, This leaf lettuce is okay, but it would be better to get a lettuce that has that dark.

You see the difference?

Yes, you can see.

Yes, This is light green and this is much, much darker.

The green.

This is your key again.

The darker the green, the more vitamin A you're going to see.

This will have more than the iceberg lettuce, but not as much as about that one.

Okay.

So again, point that out for those of you that are buying foods, right.

Look for the darker green than the lighter green or even growing in your garden.

Growing in your garden, we will have people growing in their gardens.

Okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

And our ever present.

You can't have lettuce without tomatoes.

Yes.

And these are the vine ripe tomatoes.

Generally, when you buy these in the store, these are a little bit more expensive because they allow them to sit on the vine a lot longer and thus they're more easier to bruise and are quickly perishable when shipping them.

So let me see.

This is red.

So I wonder what vitamin what is what is vitamin C?

Oh, correct.

Okay, good, good, good.

Tomatoes are good Source of vitamin C and tomatoes are, you know, are very versatile.

Right.

Fresh for stews.

Right.

All kinds of sauces.

And there's nothing better than cooking these and making your own tomato sauce for spaghetti or lasagna.

Okay.

And then you have these smaller ones, these cherry tomatoes.

Right now, these cherry tomatoes, are they high in vitamin C, even though they're small, as the large ones are?

Oh, yeah.

Here's the thing.

Okay.

Wow.

These are my favorite.

Okay, These are the fun guys.

Carlos, if you have children and they don't like trying new things and they don't like to have them, haven't tried your tomatoes.

There's all kinds of things you can do.

You can make fun little animals with toothpicks and have the children design little animals with cherry tomatoes and carrots and other vegetables, and that gets them to eat their vegetables.

But these little guys are fun and they're getting this environment them in your mouth, just like popcorn.

Yeah.

So those those are the fun ones.

Cherry tomatoes are nice.

And I know that as you were saying, that children will like them if you add a little fun to it and they pop them in their mouth like popcorn.

But there's one vegetable in that bowl that I see children run from.

I like it, and it just happens to be beets.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

I like beets.

I guess I have them cooked.

I've had them wrong.

I had them steamed.

I don't like them too much when they were if they're raw.

But I like them cooked and steam.

I just like them.

What are some of the nutritional benefits of beets?

Well, beets are the dark purple.

And with the dark purple, you have a lot of vitamins and minerals.

And also phytochemicals and phytochemicals are one of the things they're doing research and they're relatively new and fighting the antioxidants in our body.

Okay.

To fight diseases like cancer is an example.

Okay.

But beets can be pickled, which is really good.

Last year when we went to Cinco for the fair, they use beets and made a big cake and it was delicious.

Just like you would make a carrot cake, right?

Just grate them and put them and make like, a carrot cake.

Just make a big cake.

That's really, really good so that you can get those children.

That's another we hated than case.

We don't want to have them always eating cake, but that would be a good way to hide it in there.

Yeah, but these are good size.

You don't want them to be much, much bigger than this.

They're usually sweet at this stage, and if they get much bigger than that, they get Corky and Woody, and they don't taste as great.

But I notice something coming out of the top.

Yeah, they do have.

I mean, when you're growing them, the greens are about this long.

Yeah.

The Greens also have.

Yes.

But they're actually, well they have some purple stripes in them but they're actually green also.

So they would fit into that vitamin E category and definitely into vitamin X.

Okay.

All right.

Learning something.

All right.

Okay.

Here we go.

What else do we have in there?

Peppers.

Now, if I remember correctly, I remember reading somewhere that peppers have a higher source of vitamin C than an orange.

Is there any truth to that?

Well, it depends upon You have to Karlos one thing and you have to remember on any food.

It depends upon the soil is grown and the weather conditions because a lot of times the pepper could have more, the orange could have more pepper does definitely have vitamin C, okay, But we have to look at soil conditions and you know, if the soil is depleted, it might not get all the have all the vitamin C and so forth that we see.

But any kind of pepper, not just the bell pepper, but chili pepper, all have a very, very good source of vitamin C, okay.

It can be the red pepper, the orange, the yellow, all peppers, peppers.

Okay.

Excellent source.

So, no, as you mentioned there, there are various colors of peppers, the reds, the rice.

And what happens is that all of them start out green and they eventually will turn to one of those colors.

Now, do you have an increase in maybe some vitamins and minerals added as it gets more mature and turns to those other colors?

There will be some there will be some change.

Okay.

And again, it depends upon the intensity of the color and the stage in which you eat it.

Right.

Okay.

But this is a good choice.

All right.

Or whatever.

Now I see something else in the bowl that a few of the home gardeners who are growing, not all of them, some of them who had been growing on their own, a few things on their own had tried celery.

No, it's green.

Yeah, that's green.

But look at that difference in the color.

Okay?

It's not as dark green at all.

No, there are some leaves on it.

And I've seen them growing and they do have leaves on it, but eventually they cut those off and we get the stocks like this.

Right.

So I might just surmise then that you don't have the same amount of vitamin E or at least a high level of vitamin E because it doesn't have the dark green.

The key here, again, if we compare the color, is the dark green.

Celery has some traces of vitamins and minerals, very high in water content, which we need, but excellent fiber.

Okay.

Well, all of these vegetables have excellent fiber.

Okay.

Yeah, well, the fiber, I know for sure, because I confess sometimes, in fact, at one of your classes that we you hold here at the university, one of the tasting things that you had or nutrition thing you had did you did this in peanut butter.

Yeah.

And we're giving you that with the children.

We make ants on the log.

And that's one way of get the children to eat.

Okay.

Take, you know, come off a piece for them, spread peanut butter and add.

Or you could do cheese if you wanted to.

If they're allergic to peanuts and put little raisins.

And the raisins was a little lambs.

Okay.

And then and that's a fun way of getting it, you know.

Yes.

Okay.

That's good.

Yeah.

I'm doing something new today.

If I messing around with children, get them to eat their.

Their favorite ones.

Yes.

Cucumbers.

Okay.

We know that some people had cucumbers in their garden, even though the cucumber worms got the best of them and got the the vines.

But some people were able to successfully get cucumbers.

I know one of the things that they love is water.

Yes, definitely full of water.

No, the skin is green.

Does that mean vitamin E?

No, because inside is what?

Right.

Right.

And that's the part that.

Okay.

But does this skin have any benefit at all?

Well, some.

But again, cucumber is not really high on any particular vitamin or mineral.

Traces of vitamins and minerals, lots of water.

Again.

Okay.

But it's not that we shouldn't eat it.

We should still eat it.

A variety is better for our diet.

Okay?

Yes.

Broccoli.

Oh, okay, Love broccoli, steamed and good size head.

Two of them put together generally will grow this during the cooler times of the year in Saint Thomas.

And that's in fact that's what we how it's grown on the mainland.

So for us it'll be growing around anytime from October all the way through February.

This has a dark green head, right very, very high in vitamin A and also vitamin C. Interesting.

Yeah, it's an excellent source of both vitamin A and C, so that's an excellent choice.

Best in preparing this to either eat it raw, chop it up and celery, or I hate to say in dips, because dips we add too much fat too, and you're going to find a healthy one that has low fat and low sodium, but they can be steamed and or microwaved.

Oh, yeah, Yeah.

Okay.

I've never put it in a microwave.

Yeah, microwave.

It goes real quick.

Like just at a at a micro in a microwave dish, put a little bit of water in it and then depending on the how big the head says very long.

Okay.

Yeah.

One of my favorite foods.

All right.

And I'm going to leave my one of my favorites for the last.

But this one, Scallion Green Onions, Tchibo, Onion family.

Uh, vitamin E are some, but not really a whole lot again.

Okay.

What's nice about the Onion is not just the white part that you should use, but the green part, too.

Okay, That adds a lot of flavor and color to whatever dishes.

So this is a good selection.

Okay.

Prices of and again, that's something that you can grow in your garden fairly easily.

And again, some of the home grown participants had this in their garden.

And it's, as you said, it's good to cook with.

Right.

We also look at one of our favorite.

It is a fruit, but used as a vegetable.

Did I get that right?

Well, depends upon the dish.

It's one of those.

It could go either with the avocado, pear, etc.. That's good.

One of the things I hear about this, is that correct?

Good fat, bad, fat.

Well, avocados are good for us, but not in large amounts because the avocado and the coca that have what we call saturated fat.

Okay, I've heard that term.

Yeah.

And so we want to go easy on them.

Okay.

So go easy on the guacamole.

You mean like I have a half of one of these between two slices of bread at one minute.

Excuse me?

You could, but just, you know, don't do it every day.

I have a lot of fat.

It.

But, you know, some of our lists, I mean, some of our viewers, I mean, will eat avocado every day.

If they had the tendency to be cautious in, you know, be cautious because it is a saturated fat, we wouldn't think of it as that, because whether you put it in vegetables or fruit, but it does have those saturated.

Yeah.

So those of you that like to cut avocados, put a little part on your bread and into some salt and you avocados, watch it.

You're putting yourself in a health crisis.

Better to put it in even a salad or something, just as it is.

Yeah.

Just cut it up and put it in a salad.

It's very tasty that way.

Okay.

Yeah.

And then we have our gorgeous eggplant, and this one is probably Black Beauty.

Not sure, but that's just a variety of eggplant, but purple.

What did we say about, Well, the beets were purple, right?

The dark purple color and different vegetables as phytochemicals and phytochemicals are.

What?

Fight the free radicals in our body.

So it's a good and that's what has to do with cancer.

Free radicals get in the way of the cancer spreading and so far.

Okay.

And so where the cancer oxidizes the cells so it helps to get in the way.

Okay.

I understand that the broccoli and the whole broccoli families that same way as well.

Yes, it's broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage.

They also have those aren't most of our especially darker vegetables and color have the phytochemicals which is is really important is that Popeye Popeye's food I just saw you there.

You're right.

You're right.

That's one way of get the children to eat.

Okay.

Yes.

This is Popeye is phrase food, Favorite food.

Okay.

Obviously vitamin E, Correct.

Okay.

Maybe some minerals.

Yes, definitely has a lot of minerals and a spinach also is very high in folic acid.

Folic acid is a B, vitamins.

And for especially for women of childbearing age, most women of childbearing age don't get on that folic acid.

I see.

But it does prevent birth defects.

Okay.

And so so this should be an active part.

It should be an active part of every woman's diet.

And that's why doctors have women take the prenatal, because it has a folic acid.

Okay.

The man that did the original long term research on folic acid, which we find in spinach, actually ate a pound of a fresh spinach every day.

Now, that may be excessive, but I don't think I could be bad.

He also discovered that it helps prevent heart problems, too.

I'm interested, but again, because of the the phytochemicals and various things.

So then essentially what you're saying to us, Carol, is that we should try to eat a nice variety of things.

Right.

Every day.

Right.

Okay.

Rather than just rice and beans every day.

Right.

Or frozen food every day.

Right.

It's good to get a variety of things.

And to add to that, what about sometimes you go to the supermarket and they're vegetables that you've never seen.

So they try new things.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

Yeah, I try something all the time.

I have never had bok choy until just a couple of years ago, and I love it.

It's one of my favorite.

Okay, So yeah, So there's a tip you really should consider again, as part of an overall healthy program, trying new vegetables or variety you eat and foods and healthy foods is the more that you're likely to be healthy.

Okay.

Prevent some of the diseases and so forth that we have.

All right.

This is cilantro and cilantro.

Okay.

Yes, I guess it has some vitamins in it.

Yeah.

Cilantro is going to have smells good.

Smell it has a mantra because I like Mexican food.

So I love cilantro.

But anyhow, it's good for, you know, spicing up food.

In fact, if if you smell this, you probably going to get those flavor buds going in your system.

But it's it's good.

It's vitamin A and some vitamin C, So even though I see garlic there as well, it's used in cooking.

Has some vitamin content, I presume garlic.

Go ahead.

So for yeah, it has traces of different vitamins and minerals.

And there's been some research with garlic saying, you know, that it may prevent this disease or that disease, but it's still doing research and some of it is questionable.

So but it's still good, right, for adding flavor to your food.

Okay.

So I see you have oil on the table here.

Why?

Wow.

And a different dressings in.

How do you incorporate these into a healthy diet?

Healthy diet?

Well, we have to learn to read labels.

That's the key.

Okay.

And so one of the healthiest choices in oil is the olive oil or canola oil and hummus.

You see the salad dressing over there and that.

Okay, yeah, that's this is it's like a cream style dressing.

We want to stay away from those, if we can.

What you want to do when you read the labels on the back, the nutritional way is look for the amount of fat in it.

Okay.

And this happens to have 13 grams of fat and then it has 230 milligrams of sodium and that's for two tablespoons and probably most people will dump more than two tablespoons.

Yeah, right on there.

And so stay away from the the creamy type like the ranch dressings and so forth and better to go with like olive oil and make your own dressing.

Okay.

I usually make up olive oil and a little bit of vinegar and then just some spices.

You could put cilantro or onion or garlic pepper and make your own dressing.

I see you have some cut almonds there.

Would you add that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you don't want to add to the dressing.

I'll get too soggy.

Okay, But after you put the dressing in, sprinkle the almonds on top, because this is a good source of fiber.

Excellent source of fiber.

Also an excellent source of protein.

Oh, okay.

It does have some fat on not too fat, but it's a it's a good way of getting fat.

Now we have some choices in and salad dressing.

And one of the latest ones are these little spray bottles, which are.

Oh, that's right.

Yes.

I saw them live recently.

Said, boy, what next?

Right.

And the serving size here is ten little sprays.

And so it gives you the amount of fat.

But as long as you just doing little squirt, I see this lovely bowl of fruits in front here.

Do fruits have fat in them?

The coconut, like we said.

Right.

And then if you put the avocado in the fruit category.

Yes.

But as a whole foods are very low in fat and in sodium.

We don't have a lot of sodium.

Okay.

The same with the most of your vegetables, too, which are good.

Excellent source of vitamins and minerals fiber, especially if you eat the peel.

If you can eat the peel, you get more fiber, which I don't know if you want to try mango peel, though.

I am glad you've eaten my opium.

Yes, well, it depends on the type of mango because.

Yeah, yeah.

Again, it's mango or kidney mango that makes you lick your fingers.

You end up eating a peel as well.

So yeah, there are some mangoes that you eat to provide a vitamin.

A high, very high in vitamin C. Okay, back down our chart here.

We can look up on the Mac, solve the C mango on this one.

Yeah, we have mango on this one.

Yeah.

And our chart and it has some potassium and fiber on is three stars for vitamin C, it's not quite as high is as like fruit.

Right.

Or the western cherry.

Right.

Or sugar and y or even sugar.

Apple has more vitamin C than right now.

Guava.

Guava.

Right.

Five stars.

So we have some that's a little bit higher, but still a very good source of vitamin C, okay, which is fine.

We have the papaya here.

This is an orange.

More of an orange kind of fruit right there.

A specific vitamin.

Yes.

High in vitamin C. Okay.

And any time that you have like carrots, pumpkin squash, the also the papaya very high in vitamin A because a dark yellow, if you want to call it orange, it really has a lot of vitamin A, again, going to the grocery store.

That's your key, right, for those colors.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, speaking of orange colors, I see that you have an orange here.

Okay, let me move this inside.

It sounds good.

Okay.

And I used to see my grandmother with one of these in the house a long time ago.

And if I think I know what you're going to do, are you going to make fresh orange orange juice?

Yeah.

Okay.

Fresh orange juice.

What do you think?

Is the vitamin content in this one?

Probably high, because all my life I've heard oranges for your vitamin C. Okay, good.

Okay.

Do you think it's better that we juice it or do you think it will us?

Or do you think it's better we eat it this way?

I would think no, I know a little bit better.

So I've been doing a little bit reading because you could ask me maybe ten years ago I would have said drinking the juice would have been far better.

But then I've learned that when you eat it, combined with all the fibers that are included in it, it's that much more better because it has, I guess the combinations make it more effective.

Yeah, juicing is good.

It would be better to juice a fresh orange than getting something at the grocery store in the bottle or canned or whatever.

Okay.

I know when I was growing up, my dad every morning, that was his job.

We had always fresh orange juice, but actually eating it this way is better because you do get the fiber.

If you wash the peel really good, There's no reason why you can't eat an orange peel.

Actually, no.

I saw one of the salts, the natural salts that I made with sea salt, a seasoning.

All right.

They actually have the peel of orange as part of the seasoning as well, Right?

A lot of cooking.

I just made that I take over the weekend and I grated the orange peel in the cake or you can grated and so you could grated even into the salad and it would be a nice choice.

Just say never try to squeeze an orange or squeeze a lemon over the fresh lettuce leaves or the spinach leaves or whatever.

That could be your dressing.

Interesting.

Okay, I have to use an oil.

Okay, any time.

So then again, it's always, again, I hope you're getting the picture that you can add some variety to your foods and and increase your chances of getting more vitamins and minerals and fiber into your diet.

Because we know that cancer is one of the big issues that we're facing here in the Virgin Islands and around the world.

And we want to be able to do our part in helping to make a healthier person, a healthier you and a healthier Virgin Islands resident.

Again, one things you want to encourage us to do is to read labels like Pepsi.

You're reading the labels?

Yeah, that's that's so important to read the labels because the amount of sugar that's involved is is too much.

And it's part of an overall good health management plan for all of us.

And that's what we want to help as well, too.

That's why we have this marriage.

Again, I know some of you may be in thinking that we're going to be doing another section of the garden, but now that you have your produce, what do you do with it and not just what do you do with it?

How do you prepare it in the most efficient and healthful way in order to get the best out of it?

And again, for those of you who have never seen this, this is a chart of local fruits that are grown in the Caribbean and in the tropics and they have the nutritional value you can call the Cooperative Extension Service, and we'll see if we we probably have a couple more and we're actually in the process of working on another one.

So we just want to thank you for joining us today.

Carol, thanks for your time.

Thanks for joining us today.

It's been very informative.

And so those of you that are doing your gardening now, you can transition from growing your crops into preparing them properly.

You now have a little bit better understanding of the nutritional value of the things that you've been you're going to be eating and will be eating and some of you have been eating and we at ten or 12 and at the Cooperative Extension Service and the Department of Agriculture, we really want you to consider our whole life change, including the gardening, taking care of your health, because we want to have a better and a healthy virgin Islands resident.

And so until next time, we'll see you.

Thanks for joining us on Home Grown today.

Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said the Homegrown, Homegrown Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

I said, we food , we food, come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.I said, Your food, your food Come let we plant it, plant it, plant it.

From the earth to the dirt, come let we till up the soil, till up the soil, from the earth to the dirt,