Monday, 19 September 2005
Eating Your Veggies and Fruit
Topic: Veggies and Fruit
Here’s what the National Cancer Institute says about eating fruits and vegetables:
“People whose diets are rich in fruits and vegetables are likely to have a lower risk of getting cancers of the colon, mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, and lung, and may reduce their risk of prostate cancer. They are also less likely to get diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension.
“To help prevent these cancers and other chronic diseases, experts recommend 5 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. This includes 2 to 4 servings of fruits and 3 to 5 servings of vegetables, with dark-green and deep-yellow vegetables making up about one-third (about 1 to 2 servings) of the vegetable servings. There is no direct evidence that the popular white potato protects against cancer.”
Now, that may sound like a lot of vegetables to some people, considering that the national average is about 1.5 servings of fruit and 3.2 servings of vegetables (almost half of which were french fries, which don’t count as a healthy vegetable). But it may not be as much as you think, since a serving is generally only half a cup, or one cup of raw leafy vegetables. You don’t usually eat only a half a cup of banana or melon. An 8” long banana is two servings of fruit, a 3-1/4” diameter apple is two servings. A quarter of a 6.5” diameter cantaloupe is about 2.5 servings of fruit. A half-cup of broccoli flowerets is only 5 flowerets. Five medium (6”) spears of asparagus is a serving. A cereal bowl of lettuce topped with a couple of tomato wedges and a quarter cup of mushrooms or radishes is four vegetable servings.
Some people say that it’s too expensive to eat healthy foods, but that may be because of misunderstanding portion sizes. For comparison, at $3/lb, a serving of ground beef costs about 60 cents. At $1/lb, a serving of apple costs about 25 cents, grapes about 18 cents. At 1.50/lb, a serving of carrots runs about 18 cents. $1.50 a pound for plums may seem like a lot, until you realize that’s 6 servings. At those rates, $2 a day would be ample to buy all the fruits and vegetable servings you need. You could easily spend that much on a Coke and a bag of chips, which wouldn’t fill you up as much, or give you much in the way of nutrients.
Eat those fruits and veggies!
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