As seen on BCTV Noon News

Week 4 - EAT MORE VEGETABLES AND FRUIT

Most people don’t even get the minimum recommended servings of fruit and vegetables per day.  Five!  One serving is equal to ½ a cup of cup of cut up fruit or vegetables, a medium fruit or ½ cup juice.

-By eating more fruit and vegetables you will find that you eat less of the other foods such as grain products. 

-Count how many servings of fruit and vegetables you had for each day last week and take the average.  If it was less than 5, your goal is to get it up to five daily.  If it was 5-6 you are doing great and can even aim for 7-9 servings.

-Try to cover 50% of your plate with vegetables at lunch and dinner.

-Eat more vegetables than fruit.  Fruit have more calories than most vegetables.  Try to keep your fruit servings to 3 per day and eat 3 or more servings of vegetables daily. 

-Vegetables that have more calories are root vegetables like carrots and parsnips, avocado are high in fat, squash also has more carbohydrate than green vegetables, as do peas and corn.  Try to watch your portions of these vegetables and eat only one of them at a meal and fill up on lower calorie vegetables such as broccoli, salad, spinach, zucchini, cabbage, peppers, cucumber, tomatoes, beet greens, kale, bok choy, gai lan etc.

-Because potato and sweet potato is starchy and high in calories, consider it part of your grains.  When you have potato, don’t have rice, pasta or bread as well.

-Stock up with fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables and have canned and dried fruit on hand for when you run out of fresh. 

-Try to shop once a week rather than stopping several times during the week.  This will save you time and ensure that even when you are tired and don’t feel like shopping you still have food in the house.

-Try a fruit smoothie for breakfast instead of cereal and milk

-Have a salad with chicken instead of a sandwich for lunch.

-Try vegetable seafood stirfry on brown rice instead of pasta

-Eat raw vegetable sticks with hummus instead of a bagel for a snack

-Eat a pear or apple for a mid afternoon snack instead of a muffin

Watch for the Eating for Energy segment every Tuesday on BCTV's Noon News Hour!