If You Eat Any Fruits Or Vegetables At All, You're Doing Better Than Half Of America

If you’re feeling down about how you eat, consider this: if you eat about one cup of fruit and more than 1.5 cups of vegetables a day, you’re actually eating better than about half of all Americans. If you eat 1.5 cups of fruit (the recommended serving size for an adult), you’re doing better than more than three-fourths of Americans. And if you eat two cups of vegetables a day (another recommended serving size), that’s better than almost 90 percent of your neighbors. We say this not to put down our fellow Americans, but to point out that eating more fruits and vegetables is linked to lower rates of heart disease, stroke and a few kinds of cancer. Fruits and vegetables help people maintain healthy weights, the fiber in fruits and vegetables help keep our bowel movements on schedule and there’s even some evidence that fruits and vegetables can give your skin a more attractive glow. So what holds people back from chowing down on their greens (and purples, and reds, and oranges, and yellows)? One theory is that vegetables and fruit are just not very … convenient. They don’t come in a ready-to-eat package, you have to generally wash and/or chop them first, and some vegetables need to be cooked in order for people to enjoy their taste to the fullest. If you don’t eat or freeze them by a certain date, they rot, which means you’re out some cabbage (and maybe actual cabbage). And speaking of money, some people may fi...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news