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In this busy lifestyle, we have become highly dependent on unhealthy junk food and seem to have forgotten the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. A fruit vegetable diet is very effective when it comes to a healthy life. Read on to know more about fruit and vegetable diet plan, an important aspect of a balanced diet.
The first thing that comes to mind when we hear the term ‘fruit and vegetable diet’ is a vegan type of diet, which includes various types of fruits and vegetables, most often eaten raw, and totally excludes meat. But this is a myth when it comes to fruit and vegetable diet plans. The meat exclusion part of the diet plan makes many faces frown and its not surprising as meat tastes better than plants. Excluding meat from the diet is not a wise thing to do, more importantly because it fulfills the protein requirements of our body, but at the same time one should also understand that fruits and vegetables provide us with various vitamins and nutrients required by our body for healthy functioning, and thus should not be ignored.more
Fruit Vegetable Diet Ingredients
Fruits do contain fructose, a sugar which is easily converted to body fat, but the benefits of eating fruits are much more than the disadvantages. The fructose content is high in some fruits but moderate in others. Vegetables have two main advantages over fruits: firstly they contain complex carbohydrates which cannot be easily converted to fats and secondly they are low in calories. But this doesn’t mean that fruits are not important in the diet. A balanced diet should contain vegetables as well as fruits. Fruits such as apples, oranges, pears, strawberries, blueberries, papaya, cantaloupe, guava and blackberries contain fairly less amount of sugar and hence are ideal fruit vegetable diet ingredients. In fact green apples have the least amount of sugars in them. On the other hand, fruits like bananas and grapes should be consumed in less amounts or are best avoided owing to their high fructose content. Some important vegetables, such as cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, lettuce, tomato, spinach, eggplants, collard greens, alfalfa sprouts and Brussels sprouts need to be compulsorily incorporated in your fruit and vegetable diet plan.
Fruit and Vegetable Diet Plan
In order to live a healthy life and for successful weight loss, a person is recommended to have at least nine servings of fruits and vegetables in a day. An ideal breakup would be four fruit servings and five vegetable servings a day. To make sure one is not overeating, the servings should be small and frequent rather than large and few. This will ensure that you are full throughout the day and also help you to stay away from unhealthy and unhygienic fast food. Cooking is also an important aspect of your fruit and vegetable diet plan. Raw foods are high on nutrients and if at all you want to cook them before eating, baking or steaming them is much wiser than boiling them as boiling tends to lower their nutritional value. Another important thing to be kept in mind is that the fiber content in a whole fruit makes it more nutritional than the fruit juice. It’s ideal to include fruits or fruit juices in your breakfast in the early morning. Halfway between your breakfast and lunch you can either eat some fruits or sip another glass of low-sugar (sugarless) fruit juice. Lunch should include a variety of vegetables, either raw or steamed. Boiling and deep frying will make your healthy fruit vegetable diet unhealthy. A fruit or vegetable salad can be an ideal evening snack, followed by dinner consisting of easy to digest food. More importantly your last serving should go in at least an hour or two before you go to bed.
Initially, getting used to a vegetarian diet will be a bit tough, especially if meat is the most important component of your diet but slowly you will get used to this healthy diet regime. A balanced diet is the key to success and this balanced diet should include all the nutritional fruits and vegetables. Good fruit and vegetable diet plans have many health benefits. It reduces the risk of various cancers and heart diseases. Eating fruits and vegetables will make you feel full and you won’t have to depend on unhygienic fast food which is the biggest threat to your health. Remember that the only success formula for a healthy and long life is a balanced diet, and balanced diet is not possible without fruits and vegetables
Without proper nutrition, bones can become weak and brittle and joints can become damaged.
The health related benefit of a high consumption of fruit and vegetables on a variety of disease has been gaining increasing prominence in the literature over a number of years. A number of observational experimental clinical and intervention studies over the past decade have suggested a positive link between fruit and vegetable consumption and the skeleton (or bones). The skeleton itself has been referred to as “a giant ion exchange column loaded with an alkali buffer,” as 80% of body carbonate, 80% of body citrate, and 35% of body sodium are contained in solution within the hydration shell of bone and are released in response to metabolic acid.more
A variety of population based studies published in the later part of the 1900s and more recently between 2001 and 2003 have demonstrated a beneficial effect of fruit and vegetable potassium intake on indices of bone health in young boys and girls, premenopausal women, perimenopausal women, postmenopausal women and elderly men and women.
Calcium can be found in foods such as low-fat milk and yogurt, dark green, leafy vegetables such as kale and broccoli, carrots, yams and fruits such as oranges.
Acid – base homeostasis is critical to health and it is well documented that extracellular fluid pH remains between 7.35 and 7.45. A major requirements therefore of our metabolic system is to ensure that hydrogen ion concentrations are maintained between 0.035 and 0.045 m Eq/L. Acid-forming foods (protein and carbohydrates) drain calcium from the bones; alkalizing foods (fruits, vegetables, seaweeds) neutralize the acids and prevent calcium drain.
• Effect of dietary acidity:
On a daily basis, humans eat substances that both generate and consume protons and, as a net result adult humans on a normal western diet generate approximately 1 mEq per kg body weight of acid per day. Of course, the more acid precursors a diet contains, the greater the degree of systemic acidity. We know that as humans becomes older their overall renal function declines which include their ability to excrete acid. Hence with increasing age humans become slightly but significantly more acidic, leading to negative calcium balance. Furthermore, osteoclasts and osteoblasts appear to respond independently to small changes in pH in the culture media in which they are growing. There is evidence that a small drop in pH close to the physiologic range, causes a tremendous burst in bone resorption.
• Role of potassium carbonate:
From a clinical point of view the study by sebastian and colleagues in 1994, which demonstrated that potassium bicarbonate administration resulted in a decrease in urinary calcium and phosphorus, with overall calcium balance becoming less negative or more positive is a very important study in the investigation as to whether alkali is important for bone health. Changes were also seen in markers of bone metabolism with a reduction in urinary excretion of hydroxyproline (bone resorption) and an increased excretion of serum osteocalcin (bone formation). Long-term studies looking at alkali administration on indices of bone health throughout the lifecycle are now urgently required.
• The DASH Diet:
Further support for a positive link between fruit and vegetable intake and bone health can be found in the results of the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stopping Hypertension) and DASH sodium intervention trials. DASH diets rich in fruit and vegetables were associated with a significant fall in blood pressure compared with baseline measurements. However of particular interest to the bone field were findings that increasing fruit and vegetable intake from a 3.6 to 9.5 daily servings decreased the urinary calcium excretion from 157 mm/d to 110 mg/d.
Foods for improving bone health:
• Dairy foods provide the major, readily absorbed sources of calcium. Women aged 40 and over should consume 3-4 serves of low fat dairy food daily. Other, non-dairy sources of calcium include fortified breakfast cereals, canned fish with edible bones, some nuts, seeds and green vegetables.
• If calcium supplements are required, the best absorption rate is from a dose of 500-600mg of calcium once or twice daily.
• Avoid salty foods and adding salt to meals and during cooking.
• Vitamin D supplements may be necessary for elderly women with inadequate sun exposure
Weight control, protection form heart disease and some cancers are only some of the benefits. So, if you are looking to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet, here are some ideas to get you there.
1. Have a smoothie for breakfast. This can be anywhere from three to five servings of fruit. Make one at home or go to one of those smoothie places. Just stick to all fruit smoothies. Avoid the “light” smoothie. It is probably filled with artificial sweeteners.
2. Drink vegetable or tomato juice before meals. They curb the appetite and the five ounce can adds half a cup of vegetables to your diet.
3. Make a big pot of vegetable soup for lunches all week. One of the best recipes is at the website Saving Dinner. Click on the “Body Clutter” free menu, scroll down until you see “Veggie Soup”. You can also try a basic minestrone soup. Avoid canned soup. They are too salty, lack in nutrition, and in flavor. more
4. At dinner, make your sides vegetables and skip the starchy sides like pasta and white rice.
5. If a meal is not a meal with out dessert, make dessert a cup of mixed berries, a dollop of vanilla yogurt and a tablespoon of granola. You can change this up with anything from pineapple, baked apples to peaches.
6. The tried and true fruit bowl. Just get a fruit bowl and fill it with organic apples, oranges, bananas, kiwi and peaches. This makes fruit as snack healthy, truly convenient.
7. Snack on fruit and cheese. It is a winning combination. Mix it up- Apples and Parmesan, pears and cheddar, peaches and cottage cheese, berries and mozzarella.
8. Everyone knows that raw veggies make a good snack but, try them cooked as a snack. This can be especially helpful if you get gas from raw veggies. Lightly steam carrots, sugar snap peas, green beans, and broccoli lightly and spray lightly with butter. You can also dip them in a low fat cheese sauce or ranch. They are great warm or cool!
9. Make a salad as your meal. Go light on the dressing and add some tofu or a chicken breast.
10. Go vegetarian for a week and find new ways to eat your vegetables!
11. Mash cauliflower and turnips into mashed and twice baked potatoes. Your family will not even know they are there.
12. Grate vegetables such as zucchini, carrots, parsnips, turnips and squash. Add them to red sauces, pizza, meatloaf and chili. No one will notice and you’ll get the all the nutritional benefits.
Getting creative with your diet and your fruits and vegetables is a sure fire way to get more into your stomach. Hopefully, the above ideas will spur on a few of your own.