vegetables

A recent study carried out in the UK found that a high proportion of 11-13 year olds couldn't recognize basic vegetables and fruits. Could your kids do better?

I loved the topic in the New York Times WellBlog... "Lying About Your Vegetables". Another study has been published to show that people inflate the amount of veggies they consume each day. The blogger asks readers to "fess up" if they lie about their daily veggie intake.

The post inspired me to tell you about an easy way to plan to get your greens.

Health experts often blame poor neighborhood's inaccessibility to healthy food--like fruits and vegetables--for their community's declining health. In May, The New York Times reported that supermarkets are leaving areas like Queens and Harlem, making it difficult for residents to find fresh food within walking distance of their homes.

That's why the Veggie Mobile is a great idea! The Veggie Mobile is a basically a farmers market on wheels. Serving neighborhoods around Albany, New York, the Veggie Mobile sells wholesale produce to low-income communities and senior living communities.

A Diet Blog reader (who shall remain anonymous) writes:

"I have a 28 year old man in my life who won't eat vegetables. He subsists on a diet of meat and carbs. He's thin as a rake, but unhealthy. I feel he's really lacking these valuable nutrients. He goes through phases of vitamin supplements and Vie (Its a 'shot' of liquid veg) but I don't feel these make up for not eating veg, EVER! He claims its the texture that he can't stomach.

I know other adults have this problem. I'd love to know what you think?"

How can you encourage vegetable consumption in adults? Anyone?

Let me start off by saying this. You'll never catch me within 50 feet of a McDonalds. Seriously, I get queasy just driving by fast food joints, but for those of you hooked on the Ronald. Good news! Arguably the one healthy thing on the menu is back. Tomatoes have returned.

With a food crisis on our hands and the prospect of shelling out big bucks for our food sources of phytochemicals, many people have thought about starting a garden. The prospect of growing one's own fruits and veggies does have a certain nostalgic appeal to accompany the financial one. The idea is certainly gaining ground (at least in my neck of the woods in western Canada). Companies that sell seeds, soil and other essentials have seen unprecedented demand for their goods.

Because the idea of gardening is new to me, I've had to pull together some resources to help get me started. I would recommend doing your homework, speaking to someone who works at a gardening store and clip some articles from the web.

Here are some basic tips on how to start a vegetable garden:

Broccoli is a superfood in every sense of the word. If you aren't eating broccoli and other cruciferous veggies - here's what you're missing out on;

I was shocked to read a recent article about wasted fruit and vegetables in the UK Times, reporting that 4.4 million apples are dumped in household bins every day in the UK. The figures have just been released by the Waste Resources Action Programme (Wrap) and a full report is due next month.

It's not just apples, either. The article went on to say:

Do you waste money by throwing away perfectly good food? Here's six ways to make sure you don't have to.

Editor's note: This is a guest post from Gerry Pugliese of DiseaseProof.

America, we're shell-shocked! The fad diet hype machines have left us bleary eyed, and, somehow we've forgotten the simplest way to lose weight and stay healthy. It might bring back painful childhood memories, but kids, "Eat your vegetables!"

It's true, if blogging on DiseaseProof has taught me anything, it's that eating plenty of fruits and vegetables gives your body the best chance to look great and prevent disease. Hey, it worked for me! I went from being an overweight Soprano's look-alike... to a fit and trim gym rat...

A few weeks back we published a (fairly comical) chart graphing fruits - on a scale of taste against ease of eating.

Here is a follow-up (artfully created by Gerry Pugliese of Disease Proof).

Most diets focus on what you should not eat, and some diets count the calories you should eat, but a better approach is to focus on eating good foods.

Researchers found that overweight adults who were instructed to focus on lower-calorie foods lost more weight than those who were simply told to cut their overall calories.

Get ready to see Mickey Mouse's grinning face on an apple carton near you. Disney have created a new brand "Disney Garden" that uses produce from over 15 growers and will be packaged with Disney characters (see Imagination Farms). Already available are peaches with Daisy Duck and Goofy stickers, and table grapes packaged in Mickey and Minnie Mouse boxes. Organic apples with Winnie the Pooh -- the mascot for Disney Garden organic selections -- are due out sometime in September. (via CNN)

The University of Dundee has determined that oven-roasted Ratatouille is as acidic as many carbonated drinks. Ratatouille is a traditional French Provençal stewed vegetable dish made up of tomatoes, onions, zucchini (courgettes), eggplant (aubergine) and sweet peppers (capsicums) (via wikipedia).

"I remember the good old days... when the fruit was tastier and the vegetables more nutritious."

How many times have you heard such a sentiment? Or even said something similar yourself? We nod and laugh at our anecdotal observations - but what if somebody could prove it?

Research does indeed confirm this: The nutritional quality of fruits and vegetables is declining - and in some ways quite dramatically.

It's rare to see - a cartoon character will be appearing on packages of citrus, spinach and carrots. Under the licensing deals, SpongeBob will be giving a thumbs-up on bags of spinach from Boskovich Farms. SpongeBob, Dora and "Lazy Town" characters will appear on bags of carrots from Grimmway Enterprises, and a stable of Nickelodeon characters will adorn bags of oranges, tangerines and clementines from LGS Specialty Sales.

Zap2it.com: "Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health have quantified a fairly obvious-sounding notion -- that children's consumption of fruit and vegetables goes down as their TV viewing goes up.

The research showed that kids who increased TV viewing by an hour per day over the course of the study ate an average of two fewer servings of fruit and vegetables per week than those who didn't watch television at all."