August 6, 2003

New Zealand and Australian vegetable growers and researchers have joined in the NZ$22 million Vital Vegetables® project in Sydney today.

Crop & Food Research chief executive, Paul Tocker said, "We are committed to the five year Vital Vegetables® project aimed at enhancing the health benefits of vegetables. Working with the vegetable
industries on both sides of the Tasman to meet consumer needs for nutritious, fresh and tasty vegetables is of strategic importance to Crop & Food Research," he said.

The Vital Vegetables® project sees Vegfed (New Zealand Vegetable and Potato Growers Federation), and Ausveg (Australian Vegetable and Potato Growers Federation) joining with other project partners; New Zealand's Foundation for Research Science & Technology (FRST), Crop & Food Research, and Australia's Department of Primary Industries (Victoria) and Horticulture Australia Ltd.

The project aims to meet consumer needs identified in market research.  This showed consumers overwhelmingly seek food products that will deliver a 'package' of desired attributes that include: nutrition and health, taste, freshness, convenience and price.

Already available from the Vital Vegetables® project is a book "Antioxidants - a Health Revolution" by Crop & Food Research's Dr Carolyn Lister. The book provides a comprehensive and practical guide
to the role of antioxidants in foods and the importance of fruit and vegetables in our diets.

Information about the Antioxidant book: www.crop.cri.nz/books

August 11, 2003
Australian Broadcasting Service story on this subject, as reported by Life Sciences Network

Broccoli to be first in new line of 'super' greens

It’s a lean, green, cancer-fighting machine. Broccoli is to become the first in a new wave of super vegetables.

In a collaborative effort between the governments and science and industry researchers, broccoli is now being selectively bred so each floret has 40 percent more cancer fighting properties.

Aiming to cash in on the food-as-medicine concept, the Australian and New Zealand Governments are envisaging oncologists in the dole queue as medicinal food keeps hormones in balance and humans
healthy.

The five-year 'Vital Vegetables' project, which will eventually encompass more than broccoli, is a $20 million enterprise.

Project leader Dr Bruce Tomkins, from the Victorian Industry Department, says early findings are very promising.

Broccoli already has the glucosinolate, vitamins and antioxidants that science is certain improve the body's defences against cancer. This project will hunt for the broccoli types with the highest amounts,
before selectively breeding a brand with optimal levels of the compounds.

"We have been very pleased to find that... in some of the vegetable crops we've looked at so far, we've found a large range in the levels of these which range from up to 40 times what we'd expect," Dr Tomkins said.

It means the team has found broccoli with 40 times more chemicals that can slow or prevent cancers of the alimentary canal and potentially lower cholesterol levels that can lead to cardiovascular disease.

"Anything is possible and it could be that in the future we'll be able to deal what predisposition your body has to disease," Dr Tomkins said.

"Indeed from a very young age we could prescribe a diet that may help prevent those diseases."

The director of the Asia Pacific Health and Nutrition Centre Making, Professor Mark Wahlqvist, says making sometimes-dreaded greens super-nutritious offers another intriguing possibility.

"It is true that someone who may not be too keen on broccoli might be able to manage with one small serving size rather than several."

Professor Wahlqvist was one of the first to produce breakthrough evidence in the late 1980s linking plants, specifically soy and female hormones, although he warns there are limits to how much any one
food can be enhanced.

"If you were growing them within the limits that are there in nature that is an important check and balance.”

Professor John Catford, from Deakin University, says there are already many nutritious vegetables.

"The challenge is that we're not eating them," he said.

The former Victorian chief health officer says three out of four Australians do not eat their recommended five serves a day.

"If we look at particular subgroups, we find some quite alarming features appearing," Professor Catford said.

"For instance, younger adults, 18- to 24-year-olds, only one in six are eating the right level of vegetables.

"Men, perhaps not surprisingly, eat less vegetables than women.

"I think one in six are eating the sort of right amount, but five out of six men aren't."

Another potential hurdle is public skepticism about altering food at all.

That has been identified by the project's market research and supported by the ABC's straw poll. Even when told super-broccoli is not genetically modified, some consumers are still skeptical.

Professor Wahlqvist agrees we do need to be concerned about tampering with nature.

"I think it's more a question of sustainability of the food supply," he said.

"But we don't want to lose opportunities either for improving our health, through modifications of the let's say, vegetable supply, and we've always done it."

It is not yet known how much more the 'Vital Vegetables' brand will cost although the project's research has suggested people would be prepared to pay more.

That is another signal to be cautious, according to Professor Catford.

"We already have some quite big gaps in terms of health status according to your income or your educational level or other indicators of social disadvantage," he said.

"So any public health measures must be focused on trying to reduce the gap, not increase the gap."

The research is in its infancy but for the vegetable-phobe, there is yet more hope - the same scientists are planning to breed more flavour back into our florets.

Source: ABC News, 11 August 2003 via Life Sciences Network