Health gem

If you do one thing this week . . . don’t overlook white fruit and vegetables

It’s sound advice to include fruits and vegetables of many different colours in your diet, but while you are reaching for that rainbow, don’t overlook the whites.

A recent Dutch study asked more than over 20,000 adults aged 20 to 65 about their diets, and looked at associations between fruit and vegetable colour groups with 10-year stroke incidence.

The analysis points to a higher intake of white fruits and vegetables being inversely associated with incident stroke.

"Each 25g increase in white fruit and vegetable consumption was associated with a 9 per cent lower risk of stroke," wrote the authors in the journal Strokelast month.

“The results of the present study suggest that high consumption of white fruit and vegetables, comprising mainly apples and pears, may protect against incident stroke.”

But they add a caveat: “However, our findings need to be confirmed in other prospective cohorts studies before recommendations for the consumption of white fruits and vegetables can be made.”