by Samara Alpern
Daily Lobo columnist
Come with me to the dark side of the garden.
Vegetables have a dark side. Most people don't eat enough vegetables, and perhaps there are some good reasons why. These nutritious foods can have unpleasant side effects - tears, stinky urine and flatulence, just to name a few.
No doubt you are familiar with vegetables' bright side. Vegetables are integral to good health and protective against cancer and heart disease. Five servings a day provide you with essential vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, with modest calories. Vegetables also come in an enchanting array of colors, flavors and textures - but, benefits aside, today let's take an unflinching look at the bad side of the greens.
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Onions:
The humble onion was once worshipped by Egyptians and buried with the pharaohs. Its concentric structure symbolized eternity. Onions are a good source of vitamin K, as well as the antioxidant quercetin, a flavonoid now being studied for its possible antihistamine and anticancer properties.
Onions are also pungent to the point of provoking tears - but don't be mad at the onion.
It's only trying to protect itself from being stabbed repeatedly with a knife.
When you slice an onion, you break apart cell walls and release enzymes and chemicals called sulfoxides into the air. The sulfoxides, enzymes and air combine to produce thiopropanol sulfoxide vapor, an irritant which dissolves in the film of tears present on the eye. The effect is to bathe the eye in a toxic wash. Of course, your eye then triggers more tear production for relief.
Protection from the reaction altogether can be achieved with a goggles or a scuba mask - dorky, but effective. You can also chill your onions for an hour or so before chopping. Since chemical reactions occur more slowly in cold temperatures, the cold will retard the noxious fumes.
Asparagus:
The elegant asparagus - currently in season - is a member of the lily family. The vegetable is an excellent source of folate, a vitamin with an important role in DNA synthesis and a vitamin in which many Americans' diets are frighteningly deficient.
Asparagus also has the fun quality of giving urine a unique putridity.
Asparagus contains the same powerful stink factor employed by skunks: methyl mercaptan, a derivative of the amino acid methionine. That special "asparagus pee" smell occurs when the sulfurous breakdown products of methyl mercaptan end up in the urine. Curiously, genetics determine who has the ability to detect the asparagus reek of one's own urine: only 43 percent of the population can.
Are you one of the lucky ones?
Beans:
Beans have been a primary staple of our region since prehistory, nourishing several civilizations. At a bargain price and with minimal fat, they provide a wealth of nutrients like B vitamins, folate, protein, carbohydrates and fiber.
As you may have heard, they can also make you fart.
Beans are rich in not one, but two flatulence-inducing elements - raffinose and fiber. Both of these items cause gas because they are indigestible.
Here's how farts are made: Indigestible materials roll through the gut until they get to the intestine, where friendly microflora get to work and do the digesting for us. The little intestinal critters digest by way of fermentation, and the fermentation process produces gas.
To deal with the indigestibility of raffinose in beans, try a product like Beano, which supplies enzymes to help your body break down raffinose in a more polite way.
Beano won't do much to help you digest fiber, but it is not advised to eliminate fiber from your diet just so you don't go around blaming the dog. Fiber is protective against heart disease and cancer, and also essential to healthy digestive tract function.
If you don't eat much fiber now, slowly increase your intake over a couple weeks and you should be able to stymie the digestive pyrotechnics. A serving of beans contains about eight grams of fiber, and a serving of beans a day is a great way to meet your goal of 25 to 35 grams of daily fiber.
By the way, before you go accusing the blessed pinto bean of fomenting every faux pas, keep in mind that the National Institutes of Health estimate that farting 14 to 23 times per day is normal. Who was the lucky grad student assigned to tally that statistic, I wonder?
Vegetables can indeed have a dark side. But that's no reason to stop eating them. Next time you defer eating a vegetable because of its negative effects, consider the positive potencies as well. Scientists don't know all the ways vegetables work to promote health, and it's entirely possible that the same elements that make you cry, have skunk pee and fart are the same things that protect you from cancer and heart disease.
So pass the beans, baby.
