Diet Blog

Our food pyramid tells us that we need 5 serving of vegetable and fruit each day. That’s just bare minimum because more veggie is good for us. However, less than 1/3 of American made the 5 servings mark.

According a survey conducted by the Johns Hopkins University, only 28% of American eat two or more servings of fruit, which include fresh or dried fruit and fruit juice. (1% drop from 1994). Vegetable is a bit better, 32% made the cut (drop from 35% at 1994). Combine both goal, only 11% of us made it.

Vegetable and fruit are important to diet because

• A lot of vegetable are negative calories food, which mean you spend more calories to digest than the food provide
• Fiber expands in your stomach. It will make you feel full faster and with less food
• Fiber promote regular bowel movement and prevent constipation

It is not that hard to add vegetable to you diet, here are a few tips

• Serve salad with dinner (be careful of the salad dressing, get the low fat & low sugar one)
• Eat fruit instead of chip or cookie as snack
• Add beans to your soup
• Add different kind of berries to you cereal (frozen berries are the same as fresh one)
• Hide your veggie, chop broccoli and add to your pasta sauce, put some spinach on top of your pizza.
• Try stir fry, it is a great way to add veggie to your meal
• Replace normal cereal, bread and rice with the whole grain one.
• Add fruit into you smoothie

However, not all vegetable and fruit are good for you, be careful with

• Canned fruit. They are soaked in sugary syrup. Drain the syrup before you eat. (FRESH vs CANNED
• Dried fruit. Many of them are coated with sugar. Find one that is sugar free.
• Fruit juice. Most juice are sugar added. Apple juice is one of the worst
• Cold Breakfast cereal. Many commercial brands are high in sugar and fat, read the label before buying
• Beans. High in calories and Carbs, don’t eat too much of them.
• Root vegetable like carrot. High in Carbs, not good for dinner.

Yes, vegetable can be unhealthy too. Also, salad with excessive dressing or heavy dipping (go easy on that blue cheese sauce) are not going to help either.

If you really having hard time eating more fiber, try supplement like Fiber Choice or Benefiber.