Are You Eating Enough Fruits and Vegetables
Our parents told us to eat our fruits and vegetables to be healthy and they were right. Fruits and vegetables are the original health foods and should be consumed daily. The old advice was to eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day but we now know that that is not enough. The departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services now recommend 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day (1) while the UK now recommends 10 servings a day. This is based on a recent study by University College in London that "found that eating large quantities of fruit and vegetables significantly lowered the risk of premature death. People who ate at least seven portions of fruit and vegetables each day were 42 per cent less likely to die from any cause over the course of the study (2)." The USDA Dietary Guidelines recommend people eat up to 13 servings of fruits and vegetables a day because consuming more fruits and vegetables can help you prevent and reverse cardiovascular disease and stroke, prevent some types of cancer, prevent and reverse gastrointestinal diseases, prevent and reverse type II diabetes as well as prevent and reverse cataract and macular degeneration, two common causes of vision loss (3). New studies show that eating up to 20 servings of fruit a day not only has no adverse affects but may also provide benefits for "body weight, blood pressure, insulin, and lipid levels (4)."
If you are not eating enough fruits and vegetables on a daily basis you are undermining your health. Know that you have the choice right now to prevent a myriad of health issues and these choices will be reflected in your future health. Be proactive, not reactive, because not everybody has the chance to be reactive. "The problem with sudden cardiac death is that, of all the people that have heart disease ... half of the time the first symptom is a heart attack," said Dr. Stephen Kopecky, professor of medicine and a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "And half of that, half will [die] within an hour (5)." Health is our greatest wealth. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound a cure and in this case the ounce of prevention may be as simple as some fruits and vegetables. Which sounds more appealing, eating more apples and greens or a lifetime of medications and surgeries? The choice is yours.
1) http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/take-the-fruit-and-vegetable-challenge
2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10735633/Healthy-diet-means-10-portions-of-fruit-and-vegetables-per-day-not-five.html
3) http://www.health.gov/DIETARYGUIDELINES/dga2005/document/html/chapter5.htm
4) http://www.forksoverknives.com/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-much-fruit/
5) http://abcnews.go.com/Health/HeartHealth/story?id=8280224&page=1
If you are not eating enough fruits and vegetables on a daily basis you are undermining your health. Know that you have the choice right now to prevent a myriad of health issues and these choices will be reflected in your future health. Be proactive, not reactive, because not everybody has the chance to be reactive. "The problem with sudden cardiac death is that, of all the people that have heart disease ... half of the time the first symptom is a heart attack," said Dr. Stephen Kopecky, professor of medicine and a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "And half of that, half will [die] within an hour (5)." Health is our greatest wealth. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound a cure and in this case the ounce of prevention may be as simple as some fruits and vegetables. Which sounds more appealing, eating more apples and greens or a lifetime of medications and surgeries? The choice is yours.
1) http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/take-the-fruit-and-vegetable-challenge
2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10735633/Healthy-diet-means-10-portions-of-fruit-and-vegetables-per-day-not-five.html
3) http://www.health.gov/DIETARYGUIDELINES/dga2005/document/html/chapter5.htm
4) http://www.forksoverknives.com/is-it-possible-to-eat-too-much-fruit/
5) http://abcnews.go.com/Health/HeartHealth/story?id=8280224&page=1
