Over the past decade there has been a resurgence of interest in
growing fruit and vegetables in the garden and on the allotment.
Part of the driving force behind this is an increased awareness of
the health benefits that can be derived from fruit and vegetables
in the diet. The 'five helpings a day' dictum reflects the
correlation between a regular consumption of fruit and vegetables
and a reduced incidence of, for example, cardiovascular disease and
some cancers. Growing your own vegetables provides the opportunity
to harvest them at their peak, to minimize the time for
post-harvest deterioration prior to consumption and to reduce their
'food miles'. It also provides an opportunity to grow interesting
and less common cultivars. The combination of economic advantages
and recreational factors add to the pleasure of growing fruit and
vegetables.
This book covers the natural products that have been identified
in common 'home-grown' fruit and vegetables and which contribute to
their organoleptic and beneficial properties. Over the last fifty
years the immense advances in separation methods and spectroscopic
techniques for structure elucidation have led to the identification
of a wide range of natural products in fruit and vegetables. Not
only have many of their beneficial properties been recognized but
also their ecological roles in the development of plants have been
identified. The functional role of many of these natural products
is to mediate the balance between an organism and its environment
in terms of microbial, herbivore or plant to plant
interactions.
The book is aimed at readers with a chemical background who wish
to know a little more about the natural products that they are
eating, their beneficial effects, and the roles that these
compounds have in nature. Developments in the understanding of the
ecological and beneficial chemistry of fruit and vegetables have
made the exploration of their chemical diversity a fascinating and
expanding area of natural product chemistry and readers will obtain
some 'taste' for this chemistry from the book. It develops in more
detail the relevant sections from the earlier RSC book 'Chemistry
in the Garden'.
The book begins with an outline of the major groups of compound
that are found in fruit and vegetables. This is followed by a
description of aspects of environmental chemistry that contribute
to the successful cultivation of these crops. Subsequent chapters
deal with individual plants which are grouped in terms of the part
of the plant, roots, bulbs and stems, leaves, seeds, that are used
for food. The final chapters deal with fruit and herbs. The
epilogue considers some general aspects of ecological chemistry and
climatic stress which may, in the future, affect the growth of
fruit and vegetables in the garden particularly in the context of
potential climate changes. The book concludes with a section on
further reading, a glossary of terms used in plant chemistry and a
list of the common fruit and vegetables grouped in their plant
families.
General
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