Behavior Change and Health News
Spring for the Season's Best Fruits and Vegetables
The following article is adapted from Y Life magazine, a 40-page, bimonthly magazine for adult YMCA members at participating YMCAs. The complementary Web site, www.ylifemagazine.com, contains articles from the magazine as well as supplementary content, health tools, and a store offering products to enrich your active life.
By Cassie Dimmick, RD, Fitness Solutions
Save those canned fruits and vegetables, because this is the time of year when we have a great variety of fresh produce. Fruits and vegetables are easy to prepare, taste great, and are the best health food on the market. The minimum amount you should eat per day is 5 servings, but 8 to 10 servings a day is a safer bet to help ward off heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. With a little planning, getting your daily dose of fruits and vegetables is not too difficult. Here are some tips to make it happen for you and your family:
Eat According to the Rainbow
You should try to get a fruit or vegetable from each color of the rainbow every day, because different colors mean different nutrients and variety is important for health. This is also a great way for kids to get involved at the grocery store. You can have your kids choose a color and put them in charge of picking one or two fruits and one or two vegetables of that color for the week.
Buy Enough Produce
Although fruits and vegetables have a bad rap for being too expensive, they are actually very economical per serving. As long as you get produce that is in season, you are making a good choice. You can also try a local farmers’ market, which typically sells produce at lower prices. If you shop once a week, you need to buy about 21 servings of fruit and 35 servings of vegetables per person per week. This sounds like a huge amount, but a serving is pretty small. Some examples are a half cup of chopped fruit; three-quarter cup of whole fruit; one tennis ball–sized piece of fruit; one cup of raw, leafy vegetables; and a half a cup of chopped cooked vegetables.
Have Fruits and Vegetables Readily Available
If you do not have fresh produce ready, it’s unlikely that you will actually eat it. Instead of having sweets or other less healthy foods available, put a bowl of fruit on the counter. Also, wash and cut fruits and vegetables at the beginning of the week so you and your family will be more likely to choose those as snacks. You can also use chopped fruits and vegetables in a recipe during the week to save time. Take advantage of precut produce if you are too busy to cut your own (you will pay a little more for these, though), and have frozen fruits and vegetables at all times just in case you run out of fresh fruits and vegetables. Frozen or fresh are your best bets nutritionally; canned produce loses some of its nutrients in processing.
Eat Fruits or Vegetables With All Meals and Snacks
Breakfast and snacks are great times for fruits, which are easy and portable. Lunch and dinner should always include a vegetable. Salads make great choices and offer an opportunity to experiment with different ingredients such as artichokes, chick peas, feta cheese, arugula, and banana peppers. Adventurous items keep salad from getting boring and add some color.
Add Fruits and Vegetables to Recipes
This is a great way to enhance your diet. You can make a fruit smoothie, substitute applesauce for the fat in your pancake recipe, add raisins to your homemade bread, or use a mashed banana instead of jelly on your peanut butter sandwich. For vegetables, you can add shredded carrots, zucchini, or broccoli to your pasta sauce or ground meat; have a vegetable omelet for lunch or dinner; add chopped cauliflower, shredded cabbage, or garlic to your mashed potatoes; add vegetable layers to your lasagna; or choose a vegetable stir-fry instead of mostly meat. Vegetables are also great on the grill and can accompany steak, chicken, or seafood. Just spritz lightly with cooking oil and grill away!
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