We know that there are significant health benefits from consuming more fruits and vegetables, and that's an opportunity for us to sort of move away from some of the meals that we've been preparing in the past.
The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program is a very effective way to raise awareness and consumption of two vital food groups that are sometimes ignored, especially by children. The program results in more children consuming more fruits and vegetables, helping their health and Idaho's farmers.
There is no longer any question about the importance of fruits and vegetables in our diet. The greater the quantity and assortment of fruits and vegetables consumed, the lower the incidence of heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. There is still some controversy about which foods cause which cancers and whether certain types of fat are the culprits with certain cancers, but there's one thing we know for sure: raw vegetables and fresh fruits have powerful anti-cancer agents.
In short, it is about the multiple health benefits of consuming plant-based foods, and the largely unappreciated health dangers of consuming animal-based foods, including all types of meat, dairy and eggs.
BASICS OF DIET AND HEALTH The basic principles of good diets are so simple that I can summarize them in just ten words: eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. For additional clarification, a five-word modifier helps: go easy on junk foods.
As a working mother of a large family, preparing meals and shopping for groceries is time consuming and hard work.
On January 30, 1988, my twenty-seventh birthday, I became a strict vegetarian. I developed a passion for health and nutrition. My diet consists of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and legumes only, and has for the past 15 years now.
Using lots of fresh foods, fruits and vegetables, helps to keep the menu buoyant - I don't know if that's the right word, but it keeps a balance of freshness and health.
I am not a vegetarian. I subscribe to my own mantra: eat less, move more, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, don't eat too much junk food, and enjoy what you eat. Or, to summarise: eat less, eat better, move more, and get political.
A modern vegetarian is also a teetotaler, yet there is no obvious connection between consuming vegetables and not consuming fermented vegetables. A drunkard, when lifted laboriously out of the gutter, might well be heard huskily to plead that he had fallen there through excessive devotion to a vegetable diet.
There are several factors in modern society that contribute to loneliness. One is that we are more mobile than we have been in decades past, which is fantastic in many respects, but also leads to us to move away from communities that we grew up with and got to know over time.
Eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, go easy on junk foods.
Health messages are simply overwhelmed, in volume and in effectiveness, by junk-food ads that often deploy celebrities or cartoon characters to great effect. We may know that eating fruits and vegetables is good for us, but the preponderance of the signals we get - and especially the signals children get - push us in the direction of junk food.
The key dietary messages are stunningly simple: Eat less, move more, eat more fruits and vegetables, and don't eat too much junk food. It's no more complicated than that.
My husband and I have just really been on this journey to live cleaner and eat healthier and allow our children to see us doing that so that's the kind of lifestyle they'll want for themselves. Just a healthier, aware, conscious life. Now we buy organic, we go to the farmers markets. We really try to involve the kids in cutting up the vegetables, cleaning them, preparing the meals, just making it fun.
There's the issue of hunger, and there's an issue of if you're going to cut out food programs. We should be focusing on healthy food. Right now, fruits and vegetables are very expensive. So what can we do on the policy side to bring the cost of fruits and vegetables down?
A 'healthy diet' includes meals rich in whole grains, vegetables, nuts and fruits. Lean protein such as fish and chicken are recommended, and processed meats, such as bologna or cured ham and bacon, should be avoided.