Need a Plan to Eat More Produce?
The familiar “five-a-day” campaign — designed to encourage people to eat five fruits and vegetables daily — dates back to the late 1980s. Nearly four decades later, most Americans still don’t come close to meeting that goal. But if you’re concerned about your cardiovascular health, including plenty of produce in your diet should be a top priority, as new research confirms (see “Fruits and veggies: The more, the better for heart health”).
“Many people are motivated to eat well, but they often encounter a range of obstacles that may hinder their efforts,” says Sasha Bayat, a registered dietitian at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital. For instance, they’re not sure how to incorporate vegetables into their meals, or they think that doing so would be too time-consuming. Others are concerned about their produce going bad before they can use it, while some are confused about whether fruit is actually healthy, she says. To address these issues, here are Bayat’s five favorite tips.
Excerpted from Harvard Health Publishing
