When it Comes to Fruits and Veggies, 5-a-day Is Still the Gold Standard

Nutrition is a numbers game and one that has stood the test of time for over twenty years is: five.

That’s how many servings of fruits and veggies experts recommend you eat each day to live a longer and healthier life. The recommendation first appeared 20 years ago and since then more than 200 studies have confirmed the advice.

At first glance, that may seem a bit daunting at in our on-the-go, three meals-a-day world. But eating five or more servings a day is easier than you think. One serving is a medium-size piece of fruit, or six ounces of pure fruit or vegetable juice. That is half the amount in a typical can of soda, which is definitely not on the healthy eating list.

There are other ways to get to five including a half cup of fresh, frozen, or canned fruit or vegetables, one cup of raw leafy vegetables, a half cup of cooked dry peas or beans, or a quarter cup of dried fruit.

What make fruit an veggies such potent do-good-ers are their natural phytochemical compounds. All fruits, vegetables, beans and grains produce phytochemicals that are part of the plant’s immune system. Phytochemicals help protect plants from viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites and can offer humans some of that same protection.

Anti-oxidants such as vitamin C, which you can get from citrus fruits, broccoli and bell peppers, appear to help stop cells form turning malignant. Ditto for the sulfur compounds in broccoli. Soluble dietary fiber can be found in beans, fruits, seeds, and grains. They attract water and can help lower cholesterol levels, manage your digestive system and keep you “regular.” Insoluble fiber such as cellulose in the peels of fruit skin or lignin in the teeny bumps in pears prevent constipation. The B vitamin which can be found in brown rice and in leafy greens lowers blood levels of homocysteine an amino acid thought to be a risk factor for heart disease.

As a bonus, most fruits and veggies are fat free or low fat and thus low calorie. If that isn’t enough to make the menu greener and lighter, how about the fact that it will do the same for the wallet. Eating a few fruits and vegetables for a lunch time meal will cost at most a few dollars while a roast beef with swiss cheese on rye at your neighborhood deli might cost $10-$15 in today’s world.

Adults who downed five servings of fruit and veggies every day were at lower risk of dying young and/or developing a from of cancer, cardiovascular disease, or respiratory disease. The American National Cancer Center and the Center for Disease Control considered these fruit and veggie facts so important that together they created a nutrition program called 5 A Day with its very own website at http://5adaynci.nih.gov.

Studies over the years have shown its importance again and again. Perhaps the most prominent one was published in the March 2021 edition of the journal Circulation, which reviewed the health and diet data of more than 100,000 men and women followed for 28-30 years in the Nurses’ Health Study and the Professionals Follow-up Study.

How can I find out if I am eating 5 A Day? Print out the Take the 5 A Day Challenge chart and check off each time you eat one fruit or vegetable serving. By the end of the week, you should know how many servings you eat each day.

One caveat: keep an eye on the amount of fruit juice and smoothies you drink. The current advice is to limit consumption of unsweetened fruit or vegetable juices and smoothies to one portion a day. Crushing fruit into juice releases the sugars they contain, which can damage teeth. Even unsweetened fruit juice and smoothies are sugary.

The fly in the ointment is iron. The mineral from animal foods such as beef and chicken is labeled heme (blood) iron. Iron from plant foods is non-heme iron. The former is easily absorbed by the body. The latter is not, so vegetarians and vegans’ prescribers may suggest supplements.