Put More Produce in Your Day

3 Simple Strategies to Put More Produce in Your Day.

1. Include a fruit or vegetable at EVERY meal. There’s no meal that can’t fit a fruit or veggie—fresh, frozen, dried or from a bottle or can. Put a banana in that cereal, berries in your oatmeal, salsa or veggies with those eggs, a salad instead of fries with the meal, or veggies on the sandwich.

2. Have a fruit or vegetable in at least ONE of your snacks each day. A handful of grapes? Trail-mix with raisins or dried cherries? A sliced apple with peanut butter? A cup of low-sodium vegetable juice? Carrots and hummus? A mug of vegetable soup? You choose.

3. If you nosh at night, instead of giving yourself an ultimatum that becomes too restrictive or worse yet, gets you back on that guilt-ridden rollercoaster ride of emotional distress at your dietary behaviors, make a deal with yourself. Unless you’ve planned in advance to have an evening dessert or home-popped popcorn with a movie, if you find yourself returning to the kitchen with those after-dinner munchies, commit a fruit or veggie choice, period. Plain and simple: guidelines on what to choose NOT whether you can. It feels so liberating and ultimately, you may find at times you’re not as interested in a post meal nibble as your mind originally told you or that you simply and nutritiously end up adding to your overall health with an extra fruit or veggie serving.

For lots of cool information and strategies on how to bump up the berries and broccoli, cash in on carrots and cherries , or mix-it-up from mushrooms to melons, visit the Produce for Better Health Foundation at fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org.

This post was written by Wendy Bazilian, DrPH, RD for HealingLifestyles.com.