Some Simple Facts to Consider

National nutrition guidelines recommend that Americans eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Currently only 23% of Americans eat the recommended servings.*

In 2007, 35% of Americans reported eating only 1-2 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.**

Simple Fact:

We all need to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Complex foods can be grouped into two major categories: foods that are high in macronutrients and foods that are high in micronutrients. Macronutrients are elements like carbohydrates, proteins, and fats that we need, but should not consume in excess. Micronutrients include all vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. These are found in abundance in all plant-based foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, beans, spices, herbs, and teas.

Simple Fact:

There are 170 phytonutrients in just one orange. To date, there are thousands of micronutrient phytonutrients that have been identified in plants, such as carotenes, antioxidants, and flavonoids. Often we hear that the vitamin C in an orange is responsible for its immune-boosting properties, but there are actually over 170 known phytonutrients in just one orange. The power of fruits and vegetables is bigger than we know.

A healthy diet full of micronutrients, coupled with physical activity, not smoking, and maintaining a healthy weight, reduces risk for cardiovascular disease, strokes, diabetes, certain types of cancers, mental illness, metabolic syndrome, and helps us live longer lives. A micronutrient-rich lifestyle can also reduce the severity of these conditions in those who already have developed them, meaning less medication and less side effects.

Simple Fact:

Men and women who ate between five and six servings of fruits and vegetables per day had a 26% lower risk of stroke than those who ate less than three servings per day.***

Simple Fact:

High consumption of cruciferous vegetables, dark green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, and other vitamin C-rich fruits and vegetables (tomatoes, bell peppers) were associated with the lowest risk of stroke.****

Simple Fact:

Diabetes is on the rise in the United States for both adults and children/adolescents. Almost 24 million Americans have diabetes, and at least 57 million over the age of 20 have pre-diabetes. Adults with diabetes have between two and four times the risk of death from heart disease than someone without diabetes. *****

Simple Fact:

A European study found that participants who followed the healthy lifestyle described above had a 93% lower risk of developing diabetes.******

When eating fruits and vegetables that our bodies have seen for thousands of years, the digestive/immune response is milder than the response to eating heavily processed foods.

Simple Fact:

Being constantly challenged by “foreign” processed foods will wear out the immune system over time, making us more vulnerable to disease and infection as we age.

*Reeves MJ, Rafferty AP. Healthy Lifestyle Characteristics Among Adults in the United States, 2000. Arch Intern Med. 2005;165:854-857s

**CDC, Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)

***He, FJ, Nowson, CA, MacGregor, GA. Fruit and vegetable consumption and stroke: meta-analysis of cohort studies. Lancet 2006;367:320.

****Joshipura, KJ, Hu, RB, Manson, JE, et al. Fruit and vegetable intake in relation to risk of ischemic stroke. JAMA 1999;282:1233.

*****Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National diabetes fact sheet: general information and national estimates on diabetes in the United States, 2007. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008.

******Ford ES, Bergmann MM, Kroger J, Schienkiewitz A, Weikert C, Boeing H. Healthy Living Is the Best Revenge. Findings From the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition–Potsdam Study. Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(15):1355-1362.