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Nutritional Yield: A Proposed Index for Fresh Food Improvement Illustrated with Leafy Vegetable Data

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Abstract

Consumer interest in food products, including fresh vegetables, with health promoting properties is rising. In fresh vegetables, these properties include vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, and secondary compounds, which collectively impart a large portion of the dietary, nutritional or health value associated with vegetable intake. Many, including farmers, aim to increase the health-promoting properties of fresh vegetables on the whole but they face at least three obstacles. First, describing crop composition in terms of its nutrition-based impact on human health is complex and there are few, if any, accepted processes and associated metrics for assessing and managing vegetable composition on-farm, at the origin of supply. Second, data suggest that primary and secondary metabolism can be ‘in conflict’ when establishing the abundance versus composition of a crop. Third, fresh vegetable farmers are rarely compensated for the phytochemical composition of their product. The development and implementation of a fresh vegetable ‘nutritional yield’ index could be instrumental in overcoming these obstacles. Nutritional yield is a function of crop biomass and tissue levels of health-related metabolites, including bioavailable antioxidant potential. Data from a multi-factor study of leaf lettuce primary and secondary metabolism and the literature suggest that antioxidant yield is sensitive to genetic and environmental production factors, and that changes in crop production and valuation will be required for fresh vegetable production systems to become more focused and purposeful instruments of public health.

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Acknowledgments

Salaries and research support provided in part by State and Federal funds appropriated to the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, The Ohio State University. Work also supported in part by grants from the Ohio Vegetable and Small Fruit Research and Development Program. Use of trade names does not imply endorsement of the products named nor criticism of similar ones not named. Critical reading of the manuscript by Mark Failla and Colleen Spees and material support by Shamrock Seeds and AT Films is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Horticulture and Crop Science, The Ohio State University – OARDC, Wooster, OH, 44691, USA

    Natalie R. Bumgarner, Joseph C. Scheerens & Matthew D. Kleinhenz

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  1. Natalie R. Bumgarner
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  2. Joseph C. Scheerens
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  3. Matthew D. Kleinhenz
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Correspondence to Matthew D. Kleinhenz.

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Bumgarner, N.R., Scheerens, J.C. & Kleinhenz, M.D. Nutritional Yield: A Proposed Index for Fresh Food Improvement Illustrated with Leafy Vegetable Data. Plant Foods Hum Nutr 67, 215–222 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11130-012-0306-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11130-012-0306-0

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