To ensure that your body gets all the essential nutrients (vitamins, minerals and dietary fibre), its important to eat a wide variety of foods that are important for health.
Importance of Fruit and vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are essential to enrich ones diet. Its recommended that one eats at least 5 different portions a day. A portion is approximately 80g (e.g. 1 medium apple, a cereal bowl of salad or 3 heaped tablespoons of peas).
- Fresh, frozen, dried and canned fruit and vegetables all count
- 100% fruit or vegetable juice and pure fruit juice smoothies count
- Beans and pulses, such as baked beans and lentils also contribute to this group.
- Servings of fruit juice, vegetable juice or smoothies can only count as one portion per day no matter how much you drink.
- Beans and pulses (i.e. haricot, kidney, baked, soya and butter beans, chickpeas and lentils) only count once per day no matter how many different types you eat.
One way to maximize nutrition while minimizing cost is to buy fruits and vegetables that are in season, and they are generally fresher too during the season.
Importance of Juices
Freshly squeezed juices from fruits and vegetables are excellent sources of minerals and vitamins. These enzymes also produce the energy needed for digestion, absorption, and conversion of food into body tissues. An increased intake of fruit and vegetable juices ensures that the body will efficiently absorb more minerals and vitamins.
Recent scientific studies have also claimed that the antioxidants found in most fruits and vegetable juices can help lower a person’s risks of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Antioxidants are naturally occurring substances found in most plants and have the potential to help combat heart diseases and fight cancer.
- Vegetables contain many essential vitamins such as Vitamin A, C, E and K, as well as minerals like calcium and phosphorus.
- Eating yellow and orange vegetables like carrots can get you plenty of Vitamin A to maintain the clarity of your vision and prevent night blindness.
- Green leafy vegetables such as lettuce and cabbage have numerous benefits like Vitamin C, which help strengthen the immune system, Vitamin E, which help in skin integrity and serves as an antioxidant, and Vitamin K, which is responsible for the production of blood clotting factors in the body.
- The infamous broccoli, portrayed by the media as being disliked by children, contains bolus amount of calcium and phosphorus.
Fruit juices have been scientifically proven to give certain health benefits, provided that they are taken in moderation. Nutritionists also suggest that fruit juices should be taken in their pure state, and people should only drink 100% fruit juice.
- Cranberry juice is believed to prevent urinary tract infections
- Grape juice is believed to lower the chances of blood clots in the heart
- Orange juice is believed to prevent stroke and reduce the risk of heart attacks. Pure orange juice is very rich in Vitamin C, potassium, and folic acid.
- It is believed that juices that are made from fruits with rich colors such as grapes, pomegranates, cranberries, and blueberries are rich in vitamins and antioxidants.
- New juices from black currants and Tahitian noni have also found their way in the international market.
Fruit juices also help detoxification in the human body. Fruits help to cleanse the body, especially those with high acid levels. Tomatoes, pineapples, and citruses such as oranges, red grapefruits, and lemons are known for their detoxifying properties. While these fruits promote cleansing, they still provide the body with a high boost of Vitamin C!
How to Eat Your Fruits
- Eat whatever is available in the season.
- Wash all fruits before consuming
- Avoid storing fruits in the fridge or where they are covered, let them breathe as much as possible.
- Avoid eating acidic fruits, except for tomatoes, after 2 pm, not even their juices. They are best assimilated in the earlier part of the day
How to Eat Your Vegetables
- Wash your leafy vegetables thoroughly with water, and re rinse with drinking water
- Store the vegetables in a clean plastic bag (available in most stores)
- Leave a little breathing space for the leaves by not sealing the bag shut.
- Keep them in the fridge and pull out say 20-30 minutes before use.
- Try to consume leafy veggies within 5-7 days after purchasing them from the store
Does Eating Fruits and Vegetables Really Lead to Weight Loss?
If you’re trying to lose weight, one suggestion that you would often hear is to eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Though its important to include these in your diet (for their fiber and vitamin content), does eating more of fruits and vegetables really lead to Weight Loss?
The answer is “It depends”!
“In the overall context of a healthy diet, energy reduction is the way to help lose weight, so to reduce weight you have to reduce caloric intake/ People make the assumption that higher-fiber foods like fruits and vegetables will displace the less healthy foods, and that’s a mechanism to lose weight; but our findings from the best available evidence show that effect doesn’t seem to be present among people simply instructed to increase fruit and vegetable intake.”
Fruits and vegetables provide many vitamins and fiber, so even if they don’t promote weight loss, it seems unlikely they could do harm unless consumed in extreme quantities.
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