Fruits and veggies: Are five daily servings enough?

Eating more fruits and veggies can boost your energy, supersize your stamina, reduce your risk of disease, and help you maintain a healthy weight.

What's the evidence?

The research may be complex, but the bottom line is simple: plants contain a unique combination of nutrients and compounds that, try as we might, cannot be found in any one supplement or pill.

But how many fruits and vegetables do we really need to eat to reap the health benefits?

Research published in the journal Circulation found that compared to those who reported eating just two servings of fruits and vegetables per day, people who reported eating five servings a day were at lower risk of death from any cause, lower risk of death from heart attack or stroke, lower risk of cancer, and lower risk of death from respiratory disease.

Easy ways to add fruits and vegetables to your diet

Step 1: Serve up more fruits and veggies

Striving to eat eight to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables is easy — and no, it doesn't mean you have to become a vegetarian or give up meat and potatoes. Serving sizes vary, but as a general rule the following would apply:

For fruits

• 1 small to medium piece of fresh fruit such as an apple, orange, or nectarine
• 1/2 cup canned or fresh cut fruit
• 1/4 cup dried fruit

For vegetables

• 1/2 cup cooked vegetables
• 1 cup raw vegetables
• 4 ounces whole vegetable juice
• 1/2 cup tomato soup or marinara sauce

Think of your plate in terms of fractions, with half covered by vegetables or fruits; one-fourth covered by complex carbohydrates such as whole-wheat bread, whole-wheat pasta, brown rice, quinoa, lentils, or beans; and the last quarter covered with a lean meat such as turkey, chicken, or fish.

Step 2: Add more fruits and veggies throughout the day

The key to achieving the benefits of these health-promoting, disease-busting foods is to eat a lot of them and eat them often. Here are some suggestions:

• Start out each morning by adding berries to a bowl of cereal or yogurt.
• Order a sandwich with extra greens for lunch.
• Retrain yourself to create a meal around fruits and vegetables, rather than around a large beefy entree.
• Rediscover soups, chili, and salads that are packed with phytochemicals, which may have disease-fighting properties.
• Challenge yourself to taste something new each week. Try exotics like jicama or Asian pears, or visit local ethnic markets for even more variety.
• Savor the skins! Edible skins, seeds, and peels often contain a completely different offering of nutrients than the flesh.

Step 3: Cook up more fruits and veggies

For some tantalizing ways to boost your fruit and veggie intake, try one of the following when cooking dinner:

• Saute fresh vegetables in a pan with garlic and olive oil.
• Blend fresh, frozen, or canned fruit with low-fat milk or yogurt and ice in a blender for smoothies.
• Toss berries into salads.
• Add extra vegetables to marinara sauce, soups, or stews.
• Try substituting sliced eggplant or portabella mushrooms for meat in lasagna.
• Top ice cream, sorbet, or frozen yogurt with fresh fruit.
• Make homemade veggie-meat burgers by adding fresh vegetables into hamburger patties.

So is five a day enough?

If disease prevention, longevity, healthy appearance, and feelings of well-being are your goals, five servings of fruits and vegetables a day will get you started. But don’t be afraid to push it even further with eight to 10 servings a day in mind.

Bottom line: Five a day is good, but eight-plus is best; so err on the high side and reap the benefits for today, tomorrow, and for years to come.

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