[growingconcern]

Garbage study. They only looked at vegetables as a group - which probably included potatoes and the like (possibly in the form of french fries). They didn't look at particular subclasses of vegetables. And they also didn't look at raw versus cooked (where previous studies have found significant reduction for colo-rectal cancer rates for raw broccoli but no reduction for cooked broccoli).

[mingdingo]

A very valid point. I don't think people make a serious effort to eat vegetables in a healthy way. Mashed potatoes? That's a vegetable serving. Broccoli that has been boiled for 20 minutes? Another vegetable serving. I bet most of these vegetable servings were in the form of some highly cooked and highly processed dish. How healthy is a salad if it's smothered in Ranch dressing? I could be wrong, but my observations strongly suggest that most people don't eat raw or lightly steamed vegetables

And you're absolutely right: some vegetables are a lot more beneficial than others. I bet most people eat the tastier vegetables (potatoes) while avoiding the healthier ones (cauliflower).

[hugh3]

How does that make it a garbage study? Just because it doesn't divide up "vegetables" into tinier classes doesn't mean it didn't valuably disprove a perfectly well-formed and plausible hypothesis about vegetables as a group.

[mhartl]

It's the "vegetables as a group" part. The "vegetable group" is ill-defined because some vegetables (such as potatoes and corn/maize) have nutritional profiles more akin to grains, with higher glycemic index and lower nutrient density. I'd be very surprised if eating lots of broccoli and cabbage doesn't lower cancer rates; lots of potatoes, not so much.

[ig1]

Have you read the paper or are you just speculating ?