3 – Color Your Way to Daily Health
3 –
Color Your Way to Daily Health
It’s
important that we eat plenty of different fruits and vegetables every day. Diets rich in fruits and vegetables may reduce the risk
of cancer and other chronic diseases. Fruits and vegetables provide essential
vitamins and minerals, fiber, and other substances that are important for good
health. Most fruits and vegetables are naturally low in fat and calories and
are filling.
You’ve probably heard about the 5
A Day for Better Health program. It provides easy ways to add more fruits and
vegetables into your daily eating patterns. It’s vital that we eat a wide
variety of colorful orange/yellow, red, green, white, and blue/purple
vegetables and fruit every day. By eating vegetables and fruit from each color
group, you will benefit from the essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber that
each color group has to offer alone and in combination.
There’s several different yet simple ways to start
incorporating vegetables and fruit into your familiar and favorite meals. You
can begin your day with 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice, slice bananas or
strawberries on top of your cereal, or have a salad with lunch and an apple for
an afternoon snack. Include a vegetable with dinner and you already have about
5 cups of fruits and vegetables. You may even try adding a piece of fruit for a
snack or an extra vegetable at dinner.
Don’t be afraid to try something new to increase your
vegetable and fruit intake. There are so many choices when selecting fruits and
vegetables. Kiwifruit, asparagus, and mango may become your new favorite. Keep
things fresh and interesting by combining fruits and vegetables of different
flavors and colors, like red grapes with pineapple chunks, or cucumbers and red
peppers.
Get in the habit of keeping fruits and vegetables visible
and easily accessible – you’ll tend to eat them more. Store cut and cleaned
produce at eye-level in the refrigerator, or keep a big colorful bowl of fruit
on the table.
Getting Your Nutrition from Real Food is a Good Habit for Life
Many people think popping a multi-vitamin supplement to get their nutrients
is just as good as what comes from real foods. They don’t realize that it is
far better to get vitamins and minerals from natural foods and juices. Our
bodies utilize the vitamins and minerals from real foods more efficiently. And most people find it much easier to select
a variety of whole foods they enjoy eating instead of trying to make heads or
tails of the entire selection of vitamin and mineral supplements that are
available. And any of us who’ve swallowed a multi-vitamin or a mineral
supplement can say without a doubt that the taste leaves a lot to be desired
Supplements are also difficult for our bodies to break down and use, making
it difficult to get the full punch from the vitamins and minerals they contain.
Conversely, by consuming plenty of nutrient-dense food to get the equivalent
means the nutrients are going to be easier for the body to process and utilize,
and less likely to be wasted. We are
also processing nutrients throughout the course of the day when we obtain them
from food, instead of just getting them from the ‘one a day’ approach.
Many of the supplements available today use fillers and binders to hold them
together, plus coatings on the tablets themselves. These are products the body
does not need and will not use. Some people find they are allergic to the dyes
and fillers used in vitamin pills. However, the body uses the fiber that binds
fruits and vegetables. Often the “skin” of a vegetable, like the potato, is the
most nutritious part. In addition, sometimes the vitamin and mineral
supplements can upset our stomachs, making taking them even more difficult the
next day. In many cases, combining
supplements can counteract their effectiveness and can produce stomach upset
when dealing with the taste and smell of some supplements. On the other hand, a
variety of fruits and vegetables enhance the flavor of a nutritious meal and
their fiber aids digestion.
If you’re looking to lose weight, eating fresh food is vital to a weight
loss plan. Also, eating fresh fruits and vegetables help hair, skin and teeth
stay attractive and healthy. And when you think about it, fruits and vegetables
are the original ‘to go’ food. It’s simple to grab for an orange, apple,
banana, grapes, or quickly toss a few vegetables together for a salad to take
to work.
So when you’re looking for well-balanced, healthy, reliable nutrition, don’t
reach for the bottle. Reach for the food!
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