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RANKING fruit and veg by how 'healthy' they are | Nutritionist Explains
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Jan 30, 2025
Dr Richie Kirwan is back and attempting to rank popular fruit and veg by how 'healthy' they are. But what is the right measure of 'healthy' and how should you choose what to put into your nutritional plan? ********************************* 🔔 Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MyproteinUK?sub_confirmation=1 📲 Download the Myprotein app: https://bit.ly/3dhVVUE ********************************* #fruit #vegetable #Myprotein Official YouTube channel for Europe's No. 1 Online Sports Nutrition Brand, Myprotein. Stay tuned for brand new videos every single week that help to inspire and motivate you to keep pushing further on your fitness journey. From challenging workouts to evidence-based nutrition videos — we've got it all.
View Video Transcript
0:00
how's it going guys I'm Dr Richie kwin
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and today we're going to talk about
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doing something that humans just can't
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get enough of ranking things and putting
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them into
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[Music]
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lists specifically we're going to talk
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about ranking fruit and veg by how
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healthy they are how you do it whether
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it's something you should even worry
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about unsurprisingly people have tried
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to rank different foods including fruit
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and veg in many different ways over the
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past few decades the thing is ranking a
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food by how healthy it is isn't the
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easiest thing to do think about it like
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this what do you base the ranking on do
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you base it on vitamins and minerals if
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so which ones are some more important
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than others should they score higher why
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do you include macronutrients like
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protein fat and carbs what about
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calories what about nutrients that we
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know we don't want to get lots of like
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saturated fat or sugar it all gets quite
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complicated to understand this all a
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little better let's talk about nutrient
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density the most widely accepted way to
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Define nutrient density is the amount of
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a nutrient found in a portion of food
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that provides 100 calories for example
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so basically it's the amount of a
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specific nutrient per 100 calories this
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means that the more calories of food
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provides think high fat or high sugar
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foods the lower the nutrient density is
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probably going to be but we don't want
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to focus on just one nutrient ideally
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we'd like to look at a load of
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beneficial nutrients because Foods
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generally provide many different
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nutrients together well one way of doing
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this was developed by a well-known
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researcher in the United States called
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Adam josi who developed something called
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the nutrient rich food index or NRF
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index to help categorize Foods the NRF
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index works by using an algorithm to
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score foods which takes two sets of
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nutrients into account the first part is
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the sum of percentages of the daily
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recommended intake of nine beneficial
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nutrients which are protein fiber
1:45
vitamin A vitamin C vitamin E calcium
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iron magnesium and pottassium the second
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part involves subtracting the sum of the
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percentage of the maximum recommended
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amount of three nutrients that are best
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to limit which are saturated fat added
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sugar and sodium these are then all
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calculated together per calorie so in
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one of the first studies to use the
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score they calculated the nutrient-rich
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food index for the major food groups and
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they produced a really interesting graph
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it scores food groups on a scale with
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either positive or negative scores the
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further to the right on the graph the
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higher the NRF index or basically the
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higher the nutrient density per 100
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calories as you can see at the far right
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of the graph are fruit and vegetables
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this basically means they provide a lot
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of nutrients in very few calories which
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which is the definition of nutrient
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dense now if you look at the far left of
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the graph we can see sugars sweets and
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sweetened drinks and we can also see
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fats and oils both in the negative below
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zero this is because sugars tend to be
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so refined that they don't provide any
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nutrients while providing plenty of
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calories it's similar for fats which
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provide very few nutrients but a lot of
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calories one of the big problems with
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this graph is that it categorizes whole
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food groups together the grain category
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for example includes both refined and
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whole grains if you separated them
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refined grains would score lower and
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whole grains would score higher the same
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goes for meat and dairy categories if
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you separated them based on fat content
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lower fat meat and dairy would score a
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lot higher than high fat meat and dairy
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so it's far from a perfect scoring
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system but interesting nonetheless now
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this doesn't mean that you should only
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eat Foods on the right and never eat
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Foods on the left but it gives us a
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decent reason to get more of our foods
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from the right nutrient inside there's
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still plenty of scope to eat the foods
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in the middle too one other thing I want
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to talk about in this graph is the
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relative height above the bottom axis of
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each food group the lower the food group
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is the cheaper it is per 100 calories
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the higher the food group is the more
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expensive it is per 100 calories now
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this adds a really interesting bit of
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extra context to the graph fruit and
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vegetables are the most nutrient-dense
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but are also the most expensive on a per
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calorie basis on the other hand sugars
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and sweets fats and oils are the least
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nutrient-dense but also some of the
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cheapest food groups around this helps
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explain one of the reasons why people
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tend to eat more processed foods high in
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refined sugars and fats and therefore
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calories and why they don't eat as many
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vegetables unfortunately the cheapest
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foods with the most calories tend to be
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the least nutritious now this is a video
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about fruit and vegetables so let's take
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a look at some specific data for
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individual fruits and veggies
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unfortunately I only found one paper
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that has listed some fruits and veggies
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according to their nutrient density and
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unfortunately it only gave data for high
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nutrient density fruit and veg because
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the paper was focusing on what they
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called Powerhouse fruit and veg also
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instead of the nine beneficial nutrients
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analyzed in the NRF index that we just
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mentioned this score used 17 nutrients
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and it also factored in bioavailability
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the index didn't take negative nutrients
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into account like the NRF index but it
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did factor in the nutrients on a per
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calorie basis and all the values are
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presented on a scale of 0 to 100 here's
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the list of the top five and the bottom
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five fruit and veg they analyzed
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remember all of these are already
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considered Powerhouse vegetables meaning
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they all have a high nutrient density
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the top five most nutrient-dense Foods
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were water grass with a score of 100
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Chinese cabbage at 91.9 charred at
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89.273147
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so lots of green leafy vegetables no
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surprise there really the bottom five on
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the list which all still have a score
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above 10 where turnup with 11.43
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blackares at
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11.39% 10.69 sweet potatoes at 10.51 and
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white grapefruit at 10.47 and just to
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give you an idea of the foods somewhere
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in the middle red pepper scored 41.2 6
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broccoli scored 34.8 n pumpkin was
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33.8 carrots were
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22.6 tomato 20.3 7 strawberries 17.59%
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the list isn't exhaustive as there are
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plenty of fruits and vegetables that
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weren't tested and fruit and veg that
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score lower are still very
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nutrient-dense and you absolutely should
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eat them especially if you like them so
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if you like mushrooms which I didn't
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mention here at all keep eating them now
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like I mentioned earlier there are lots
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of different factors and nutrients that
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you should take into account when
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creating these lists some are better
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than others but the truth is that no one
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algorithm will give a perfect ranking
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with that in mind there's another way of
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ranking Foods in terms of how healthy
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they are and that's based on their orac
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score orac stands for oxygen radical
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absorbance capacity it's a lab test that
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tries to measure total antioxidant
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capacity of a food by placing a sample
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of the food in a test tube along with
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certain chemicals that generate free
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radical activity and other molecules
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that can be easily oxidized orac isn't
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the only way to measure this and there
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are other methods like frap or feric
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reducing antiox oxgen power which
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measures the reducing power of foods if
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you've not heard of that word before
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reduction is the chemically opposite
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process of oxidation foods that better
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protect the sample from oxidation get a
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higher orac score which means they're
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probably pretty good at protecting the
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body from oxidation at least in theory
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because remember what happens in a test
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tube doesn't necessarily happen in the
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body too that's it we do know that a
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higher intake of high orac Foods is
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associated with lower risk of death from
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heart disease cancer and all cause
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mortality in general so a aing for a
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high orax score from your diet is
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probably a good idea one study that
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looked at the orax score for some common
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vegetables had the following results
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which are per gram of food and not per
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calorie like we talked about earlier
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with nutrient density as you can see
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peas and carrots are lower on the list
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but still have a very measurable
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antioxidant capacity and green peppers
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and spinach are high in the list as a
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general rule the more colorful or the
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more deeply colored the food the higher
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the orx score this is because many
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pigments in fruit and vegetables are
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also polyenals which have powerful
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antioxidant properties this is why
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you'll often hear people saying you
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should eat the rainbow when it comes to
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fruit and fetch those colors are really
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good for you there's also a massive list
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of over 3,000 Foods including fruits
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veggies drinks nuts and even Meats
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ranked by their frap values called the
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antioxidant food table it's by Carlson
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at all and while I'm not going to go
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through the whole list you can check it
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out by searching the paper title from
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the caption under this video to give a
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little summary generally berries such as
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blueberries cranberries and blackberries
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are known for having a high antioxidant
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capacity as do plums and their dried
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form prunes which is probably due to
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their deep color and antioxidant content
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on the other hand watermelon and bananas
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while nutritious and delicious have a
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lower antioxidant capacity than man
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berries and other fruits as for veggies
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spinach and other leafy greens have
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higher antioxidant capacities as do Arch
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jokes if you're particularly POS and
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actually eat those on the the lower end
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of the scale white potatoes generally
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have lower antioxidant content compared
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to more colorful vegetables and iceberg
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lettuce has a lower antioxidant content
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compared to darker leafy greens like I
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said deeply colored fruit and veggies
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are usually great from an antioxidant
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perspective so what should you do with
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all this information should you base all
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your fruit and veg decisions on nutrient
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density scores and antioxidant
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capacities I don't think so most people
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simply don't eat enough fruit and
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vegetables full stop most people's goal
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should be to just eat more fruits and
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veggies and to do that focus on the
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fruits and veggies that you enjoy first
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after that if you really want to get the
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most Bang from your buck out of the
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fruit and veg that you eat you could
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start adding more fruit and veg with
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high nutrient densities or high orac or
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frap scores or simply eat more leafy
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green veggies and berries along with
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plenty of other colorful fruit and veg
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and you'll be
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winning as always if you have any more
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question let me know in the comments
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below and remember to like And subscribe
10:02
to the my protein YouTube channel for
10:03
more great evidence-based nutrition
10:05
information
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