As I was researching the topic of how to encourage kids to eat more vegetables, I kept running across statements that fruits and vegetables were basically interchangeable, like this one from child feeding expert Ellyn Satter’s site.
“Fruits and vegetables carry the same nutrients, so a child can be well-nourished on either.”
I’m currently reading Ellyn Satter’s book “Child of Mine,” about feeding children, and finding it full of good insight. I like her philosophy, and I’m not trying to call her out by checking the validity of her statement. Many many great nutritionists offer a similar reassurance to parents who worry about their child’s aversion to vegetables. Dietician Jill Castle did in her comment on my veggie post. (I love her blog, by the way – full of good feeding advice – and she’s working on a book!) Any good child feeding expert will tell parents to, above all, not worry too much about whether their child eats vegetables or even fruits for that matter. Don’t worry, because there is only so much you can do (which I outlined in my post), but beyond that, you can’t force a child to eat anything. Having any emotional investment in that idea will almost certainly backfire. So telling parents that fruits are basically as good as vegetables helps them relax at the dinner table, which is a good thing.
But, being the nutrition nerd that I am, I wondered about this purported “nutritional equivalence” of fruits and vegetables and wanted to look at the numbers myself. If this seems like sort of a silly academic exercise to you – well, it is. What I found probably won’t change the way you or I feed out children, but you might find it interesting, as I did.
For my fruit vs. veggies comparison, I started by asking loyal followers of my Facebook page (“like” it and you will be part of the next conversation!) what fruits and veggies are commonly served at their dinner tables. I compiled the following lists for my comparison:
FRUITS: apples, dried apricots, bananas, blueberries, cantaloupe, grapefruit (pink), grapes, kiwi, mandarin oranges, mango, nectarines, navel oranges, peaches, raisins, and strawberries.
VEGETABLES: asparagus, avocado, beets, broccoli, butternut squash, carrots, corn, edamame, french fries (yes, I had to include these since they are one of the most popular veggies consumed by toddlers in the US), green beans, green peas, green peppers, kale, lettuce, mushrooms, potato (baked), pumpkin, red peppers, spinach (cooked and raw), sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and yellow peppers.
I searched the USDA National Nutrient Database for nutrient composition data for each food. I selected nutrients that are commonly low in toddler diets and for which fruits and vegetables can make a big contribution. I recorded the nutritional composition as amount of a given nutrient per 100 grams of the food to standardize the measurement. (For reference, most fresh or cooked fruits and veggies would have 150-200 grams per cup, so 100 g is probably a bit more than BabyC would usually eat in a sitting.) Among my list above, I pulled up the top 5 fruits and the top 5 veggies for each nutrient and graphed them, showing veggies in green and fruits in red. This is what I found:
Fiber: You know why fiber is important. It keeps us regular, and constipation is not fun at any age. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for fiber is 19 g for 1- to 3-year-olds and 25 g for 4- to 8-year-olds. Your best bets for fiber? Dried fruit, avocado, peas, and edamame. I was surprised to see french fries score pretty high for fiber. If only they weren’t so salty…
Iron: One of my favorite nutrients to worry about, iron is essential as part of oxygen-carrying hemoglobin and for normal motor and brain development. The RDA for iron is 11 mg/day for 7- to 12-month-olds, 7 mg/day for 1- to 3-year-olds, and 10 mg/day for 4- to 8-year-olds. Fruits can’t hold a candle to veggies when it comes to iron, and dark green veggies are your best sources.
Calcium: Vital for bone and teeth growth, the RDA for calcium is 260 mg/day for 7- to 12-month-olds, 700 mg/day for 1- to 3-year-olds, and 1000 mg/day for 4- to 8-year-olds. The major source of calcium for most kids is dairy, but dark green veggies can make a big contribution. Dried fruits are decent sources of calcium because they have less water, so nutrients are more concentrated.
Folate: Folate is essential to the process of making new cells, something especially important to growing kids (and of course, pregnant women). The RDA for folate is 80 μg/day for 7- to 12-month-olds, 150 μg/day for 1- to 3-year-olds, and 200 μg/day for 4- to 8-year-olds. Most kids will get enough folate through fortified cereals, but your child’s diet may be lacking if you eat homemade cereals or organic cereals that are not fortified. Vegetables are a great source of folate, fruits not so much.
Vitamin C: Vitamin C is important for building strong connective tissue and also helps the body to absorb dietary iron. The RDA for vitamin C is 50 mg/day for 7- to 12-month-olds, 15 mg/day for 1- to 3-year-olds, and 25 mg/day for 4- to 8-year-olds. Vitamin C is a good excuse to splurge on the expensive red and yellow bell peppers in the grocery store. Beyond that, fruits and veggies can both be good sources of vitamin C, and a couple servings of either can easily meet your child’s need.
Vitamin A: Vitamin A is important for vision development, immune function, and gene transcription. Fruits and veggies contain β-carotene and other carotenoid compounds that our bodies can convert to vitamin A. We use the unit retinoic acid equivalent (RAE) to describe how much potential vitamin A fruits and vegetables contain. The RDA for vitamin A is 500 RAE/day for 7- to 12-month-olds, 300 RAE/day for 1- to 3-year-olds, and 400 RAE/day for 4- to 8-year-olds. Dark leafy greens and dark orange veggies are your best sources of vitamin A.
One other nutrient that we have to talk about in our comparison of fruits and vegetables…
Sugar: All of us could survive just fine without a dietary source of sugar (our bodies can make it), but it is one of life’s great joys. I should know – I just ate a selection of Christmas cookies for lunch. And we should not worry about consuming too much sugar from fruit – soda, sugary cereal, candy, and processed treats are far bigger concerns. Please don’t look at the graph below and stop your child from eating another apple for fear of too much sugar. But, the graph below gives us one more reason not to give up on veggies. Also, note that I didn’t include raisins or dried apricots in the sugar graph, because they would have messed up my scale – they have 55-60 g sugar per 100 g.
My conclusion: VEGGIES ROCK. But we all knew that already. And some kids just won’t like veggies, no matter what you do (or don’t do). Fruits are a strong runner-up. You are much better off rejoicing that your child loves fruit than forcing him to eat a single bite of broccoli. I guess my point in this veggie vs. fruit comparison is that I don’t think we should give up on veggies. Even if your child hasn’t eaten a vegetable in months, it is worth it to put them on the table and set a good example by enjoying them yourself.
Also, french fries count! Just consider making them yourself and cutting back on the salt a little. Another kid-friendly superstar is edamame. Even BabyC loves squeezing the beans out of the pods, and now I know that she’s getting a mother lode of nutrients with every bite.
I’d like to add that the Ellyn Satter quote I used above is not at all inaccurate. Fruits and vegetables do “carry” the same nutrients – fruits just have lower concentrations of those nutrients. There are lots of other good sources of the nutrients I profiled above besides either fruits or vegetables, and a child can be well-nourished without vegetables. Maryann Tomovich Jacobsen wrote a great article, How to Meet Children’s Nutritional Needs Even When They Don’t Eat Perfectly, that explains this point and includes an example of how to meet the nutritional needs of a kid that doesn’t eat veggies. And as Squintmom said in the comments below, “while veggies are better than fruits, fruits your child consume provide better nutrition than veggies they don’t!” It is far more important to raise a child with a healthy, relaxed attitude about eating than to force or pressure a child to eat anything. The latter will do more harm than good in both the short and long term. {This paragraph added 12/23 and updated 12/25 to clarify some of the points brought up in the comments.}
Let me know in the comments if you are wondering about a particular fruit or vegetable that didn’t show up on my list, or you can look it up yourself here.
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