What fruits/veggies should I eat?

March 13th, 2012

Fruits are not all created equal.  The current guidelines for most people suggest 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.  Does this mean you can eat 5 bananas each day?  I highly disagree.  First, an average sized banana contains 105 calories.  If you eat 5 of them, that is over 500 calories.  To put that into perspective, a can of Coke is 140 calories.  If you go by a 2000 calorie diet for the average person, 5 bananas would mean 1/4 of your daily calories!  Though you are getting a lot of potassium (which can be bad with certain medical conditions and medications), you are getting less valuable nutrients for your caloric cost.

What should you eat instead?  If you look at fruits, a medium wedge of cantaloupe has 23 calories.  One cup of nectarines (about 2 small size) is 63 calories.  By incorporating various other fruits you are getting a whole plethora of vitamins and minerals that are important to good health.

Vegetable-wise, there are many more, as in general most vegetables are not sweet.  Take your pick of celery (19 cal per cup), lettuce (8 cal per cup), cucumber (16 cal per cup), and carrots (52 cal per cup).

Be creative with your vegetables.  If you are used to chips and dip while watching sports on TV, change the chips to slices of cucumber.  While the dip may still be loaded in fat and calories, I guarantee you would not be able to eat as many cucumber slices to equal the amount of calories in a handful of chips.  (FYI 14 tortilla chips = 110 calories=150 slices of cucumber!)