Insights from a Doctor, Farmer, and Vegetable Nerd

By Michael T. Compton, M.D., M.P.H.

Author and self-proclaimed Vegetable Nerd, Michael T. Compton, M.D., M.P.H.. Photo: courtesy of the author

In becoming an organic vegetable farmer in the Hudson Valley of New York, growing produce for farm share members and farmers market customers, I had to get really smart about vegetables. And as a physician with expertise in nutrition, it was just as important to get smart about vegetables.

Why Vegetables Are the Foundation of Healthy Eating

So, I got veggie smarts, and I hope you will get veggie smarts, too. I’ll point out three rules of thumb about healthy eating. My thumbs are green, so I’m writing from the perspective of a farmer who also happens to be a doctor specializing in preventing chronic diseases, promoting health, and achieving a long and happy life.

Rule #1: Eat a Wide Diversity of Foods

First, a wide diversity of food types is key. The world’s healthiest eating patterns are traditional diets that include a large diversity of food types, predominantly plant-based foods, that are consumed whole or minimally processed (and avoiding modern-day “ultra-processed foods” in grocery stores that have a long shelf life).

Think of the Mediterranean Diet as an example. Research shows that such a way of eating is definitely good for physical health and longevity, and it’s also, thankfully, good for our mental health (I’m also a psychiatrist, so that point is very important to me). The Mediterranean Diet and other whole-food, plant-predominant traditional diets utilize a wide variety of food types, including a diverse range of vegetables.

Rule #2: A Wide Diversity of Vegetables Matters Most

And that’s my second rule of thumb for healthy eating—a wide diversity of vegetables. I don’t know why, but among more than 400 families of flowering plants with about 300,000 species, nearly all of our vegetables come from just a few species within just eight families. Eight families!

I assume that it has something to do with humans having tasted many thousands of plants and settling on a manageable few tasty ones to focus on as food-worthy and thus cultivation-worthy. It might come natural to many gardeners and small farmers, but most eaters—despite knowing how penne pasta and a French baguette, and beef tenderloin and pork loin, are and are not related—often do not know the relationships between beets and carrots or arugula and radishes.

The beetles and the groundhogs definitely know those relationships, and I think that if we do as well, then we can select what to eat in a way that will optimize both our physical health and our mental health. This second rule of thumb—a wide diversity of vegetables—means eating veggies across the eight families.

If we know those eight veggie plant families a bit better, we will be able to make smarter decisions at the grocery store, in the kitchen, and when ordering at a restaurant, with a goal of eating a wide diversity of them (across eight families). This is important because different families of plants provide us with different constellations of vitamins, minerals, and disease-fighting phytonutrients (antioxidants and anti-inflammatory plant compounds).

I’ve given surnames to the eight families; here they are: the Brassicas, the Alliums, the Legumes, the Chenopods, the Aster Greens, the Umbellifers, the Cucurbits, and the Nightshades. Taking just two examples, the Chenopods include beets, spinach, and Swiss chard, and the Nightshades include peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. Two very different plant families, with very different arrays of vitamins, minerals, and perhaps most importantly, phytonutrients.

Rule #3: Strive for “Eight on Your Plate”

So, first a wide diversity of food types, and second a wide diversity of vegetables (from across the eight families). Thus, my third and final rule of thumb for this short debut into your getting veggie smarts, is what I refer to as eight on my plate, or optimizing the number of those eight families we eat each day.

I’ve eaten especially healthily when I’ve achieved eight on my plate—at least one Brassica, at least one Allium, at least one Legume, at least one Chenopod, at least one Umbellifer, at least one Aster Green, at least one Cucurbit, and at least one Nightshade—all in a day. Some days I achieve “eight on my plate,” and many others I get close, which is good enough.

I think about the eight families when I’m making a salad, for example. A fancy chopped kale and roasted Brussels sprouts salad makes no sense to me—two nearly identical siblings from the Brassicas. And an interesting salad of lettuce, frisee, and radicchio could be much healthier if not limited to three cousins within the Aster Greens family.

Building a Healthy Salad with Multiple Families

Instead, here’s an early-summer salad made with local produce—actually, it’s super-local since the ingredients are coming directly from my gardens. I start with one of my sweet heirloom lettuces with just the lightest of dressings. Heirloom lettuces? You can’t find them in grocery stores, but you can find them at the farmers market, or even better, by joining a CSA (community supported agriculture, or farm-share membership).

Atop this special lettuce, I add two ingredients from two other families that complement the lettuce’s sweetness: sliced celery (from the Umbellifers), and a sliced French breakfast radish (from the Brassicas). Depending on what’s ripe here on the farm, I might then add a sliced Campari tomato (from the Nightshades) and a few cut green beans (from the Legumes).

That’s a salad of five families!

Each provides me with its own profile of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. If I slice on one of my Diva or Manny cucumbers (from the Cucurbits), I’ll have six families. A third of a cup of chickpeas (from the Legumes) makes seven. Sprinkle on some sliced scallions, and I have eight. Extraordinarily healthy! Food can’t get healthier than that.

What Does It Mean to Have “Veggie Smarts”?

So what is this concept of “veggie smarts?” Here’s my definition, though it doesn’t appear in the Oxford English Dictionary or Webster’s. Yet.

Having “veggie smarts” means having a thorough understanding of vegetables so that meals will be more delicious and health will be optimized. It means knowing how the different vegetables are and are not related to one another, thereby enhancing selections for a highly diversified, mostly plant-based way of eating that promotes physical and mental health and prevents or reverses poor health and disease.

It is the ability to confidently find, understand, and eat vegetables smartly, all the while cultivating curiosity about how vegetables are grown on farms and can be grown at home. A botanical understanding of these families brings about a culinary understanding of them, which benefits one’s food choices and, thus, one’s health. Having veggie smarts informs decisions at grocery stores and other places where vegetables are purchased, in restaurants, in the home garden, in the kitchen, and around the table.

Vegetable Nerds, Unite!

Having veggie smarts is about vegetable knowledge, yes, but it is also a mindset and even a commitment to oneself. My hypothesis, admittedly entirely untested, is that understanding our veggies better is conducive to eating more of them. It sure worked for me.

Dr. Michael Compton is a Columbia University professor triple-board-certified in psychiatry, preventive medicine, and lifestyle medicine. He is the author of Veggie Smarts: A Doctor and Farmer Grows and Savors Eight Families of Vegetables. Visit www.drcompton.health.