How to get fat eating vegetables?

Jun 18, 2009 by Anna Migeon

Asking if vegetables will make us fat is a bit like finding a dead body in a room and immediately pointing the finger at the granny in the wheel chair who came to deliver a birthday gift, while a couple of different masked villains wielding deadly weapons and yelling death threats are standing right next to her. Sure, it’s possible, but what are the chances? Yet, it’s a question I get regularly.

Fact: Vegetables are good for us

No real news here. I have never heard anyone deny that vegetables at their best and in themselves are probably the most flawless foods for humans. We need vegetables. Our bodies and vegetables were made for each other. Vegetables are the most highly recommended foods by most food experts, I’m willing to claim. There is plenty of debate over the pros and cons of meat, dairy and grains. Even fruit appears likelier to make us fat than vegetables. But vegetables we can count on. Anything and everything else you can eat is really more likely than vegetables to add pounds. If you get fat, I’m ready to put money on it probably not being their fault. It’s also been recently discovered that you get a lot more good out of your vegetables if you eat them with a little fat (butter or oil or animal fat).

Fact: Processed food makes us fat

As for fast food, junk food, deep fried foods, processed foods, soda, and foods containing refined flour, white sugar, salt or corn syrup, the jury is also in. The general consensus among those claiming even the tiniest bit of authority or knowledge is that theses foods are fattening and generally bad for us. No one is really denying any of that, either.

Fact: Junk food is a natural for overeating

To add insult to injury, starchy, fatty, sugary, salty processed foods—edibles manufactured by humans—are far easier to overeat than real foods—created by God—namely vegetables, fruit, and meat.

As our granny in the wheelchair would have a hard time murdering someone and appears not to be interested in doing so, and our masked villains express their intent and ability to do so, there’s some of what appears to be almost intentionality built into the personalities of our two food groups in question.

High fats combined with high-glycemic index carbs (think of a donut) not only conspire together to promote their own consumption by making each other taste better but also fool your body into thinking it’s still hungry, as I’ve heard it explained. Processed junk food sets up a cycle of feeling hungry all the time so you always want more.

You can eat more of bad foods mixed with other bad foods than you ever could of any one of them standing alone. You can eat more fat if it’s mixed with sugar or starch than you could pure fat, for example. Flour alone is unappealing, but add sugar and grease and it’s a dozen donuts, all for you.

On the other hand, all the fiber in fruit and vegetables fills you up. Your body will only accept a certain amount. Protein in lean meat satisfies hunger quickly and it’s hard to glut yourself on it. You might not be able to achieve that popular overstuffed feeling with vegetables that we’ve come to expect from our meals, but maybe that’s OK? So how do you get fat eating veggies? It’s hard.

Not only does it take a lot of work to eat too much of vegetables, but there’s really no way to overdose on them anyway. In and of themselves, they’re just all good. There’s really no reason not to eat “too much” vegetables: no harmful ingredients to worry about.

Wouldn’t it be just too cruel to have absolutely no refuge from fat-inducing foods in this world of woe? No, if any safe harbor there be, vegetables may just be it.

We are we so fat if we don’t eat fat?

This post was featured on Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday on July 23, 2010.