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What Counts Toward Your Daily Fruit and Vegetable Intake?

FitSugar — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:30:00 -0700

Several fruits and vegetables come into their prime during the Spring and Summer seasons, making it cheaper and easier for us to reach our daily requirements. Striving to eat five colors a day is a fun way to meet your nutritional needs, but do you know what size portions you should be eating to fulfill your daily five? Take the quiz to find out!

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Healthy Eating Tip: Add Up Your Fruits and Veggies First

FitSugar — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:00:00 -0800

It is National Nutrition Month and time for us all to rededicate ourselves to eating right. One simple way to improve your diet is to make sure you're eating five or more servings of fruits and veggies a day.

Before eating, I like to add up how many servings of fruits and veggies I have eaten already for the day. This tally inspires me to eat more produce. If I am out for dinner, taking inventory of my earlier meals reminds me to order a salad. If I am in a veggie deficit, when at home, I might make a stir-fry for dinner. A couple of Cuties clementines, my favorite mandarin oranges, make a tasty dessert and often push me over my daily quota of fruit and veg.

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Healthy Eating Tip: Add Fruit to Your Cereal

FitSugar — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:00:00 -0700

I've been working really hard to get in my five-a-day and one of the easiest ways for me is with breakfast. Usually, I like to have a big bowl of cereal in the mornings and lately I've been buying tasty blueberries and raspberries and tossing them into my cereal. They're both in season and cheaper than usual. I know that a lot of people may already do this strictly for taste, but it's also a fabulous way to sneak in another serving (or two) of fruit into your day.

Do you have any sneaky ways to get in a few more servings of fruits and vegetables into your day?

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Get Your Five-a-Day In-Season

FitSugar — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:00:00 -0700

I usually figure out what fruits and veggies are in season when I shop at the farmers market. Unfortunately, that is not the only place I buy food. Since I prefer eating locally grown and seasonal produce it is a little problematic when I am trying to eat my five a day. You can imagine my excitement when I recently stumbled across the Seasonal Ingredient Map from Epicurious that makes figuring out which fruits and vegetables are in season each month for each state painless. It's easy to use, very helpful, and not to mention fun, so check it out here.

Five-a-Day Lowers Risk of Lung Cancer

FitSugar — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:00:00 -0700

If you're not already eating your five servings of fruits and vegetables a day then you may want to start, especially if you're a smoker.

New research has found that people who ate three servings of vegetables a day were 1.6 times less likely to develop lung cancer than those who didn't eat three servings. People who ate three or more servings of fruit were one-fold less likely to develop lung cancer. Researchers think that this is due to the fact that fruits and vegetables contain flavonoids, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that stop the development of blood vessels that feed tumors.

Now that's not to say that if you are a smoker that eating fruits and vegetables can enable you to continue smoking and still be protected against lung cancer. The absolute best defense against lung cancer (not to mention a whole slough of other health risks associated with smoking) is to quit smoking altogether.

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Fruit & Vegetable of the Month Club: Cactus

FitSugar — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:45:00 -0700

If you are getting bored with the same old fruits and veggies you're eating with your five-a-day plan, then you may want to start learning about some more unusual items that you may want to add to your diet now and again.

The FDC's Fruit & Vegetable of the Month Club is a great reference for trying out new stuff. There is a new featured fruit or vegetable each month complete with a recipe. One of this month's featured veggies is cactus, something I would have never thought to add to my diet. However cactus pads actually contain beta carotene, iron, some B vitamins, and are good sources of both vitamin C and calcium.

Want to learn an easy recipe for making cactus? Then read more

Sautèed Nopales, Peppers and Corn
Makes 4 servings
Each serving equals 2 cups of fruit or vegetables

Ingredients

1 large red bell pepper
1 large green bell pepper
1 large onion
1 Tbsp trans-fat free butter
4 small ears of small summer corn
½ lb fresh, firm edible cactus, deprickered, cut in ¼ to ½-inch dice
finely minced cilantro or parsley

Halve peppers, then remove seeds and stems. Cut into ¼–½ inch squares. Cut onions the same size. Cook both vegetables in butter in a heavy pan over moderate heat until just softened.

Shuck corn, than cut from cob. Add edible cactus and corn to peppers and onion; stir over high heat until vegetables are cooked through, but firm-tender, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with herbs and serve hot.

Nutritional analysis per serving: Calories 184, Protein 6g, Fat 4g, Calories From Fat 20%, Cholesterol 8mg, Carbohydrates 32g, Fiber 4g, Sodium 29mg.

(via FruitsandVeggiesMatter.com)

Print recipe with images | without images

Now I'm going to have to go ask YumSugar where the heck I need to go to buy edible cactus...

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To Refrigerate or Not: That is The Question

FitSugar — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 03:00:00 -0700

Maybe you're on a quest to get your five fruits and vegetables in a day, but the darn things go bad before you even get a chance to enjoy them. What gives?

According to VegetarianTimes.com, some fruits emit ethylene, an odorless, colorless gas that speeds ripening and can lead to the premature decay of nearby ethylene-sensitive vegetables. So the first trick to keeping produce fresh is to separate produce that emits ethylene from produce that's sensitive to it and know which to refrigerate and which not to refrigerate.

REFRIGERATE these gas releasers
Apples
Apricots
Cantaloupe
Figs
Honeydew

What shouldn't you refrigerate and what shouldn't be kept in contact with others? Then read more

DON'T REFRIGERATE these gas releasers
Avocados
Bananas, unripe
Nectarines
Peaches
Pears
Plums
Tomatoes

KEEP THESE AWAY from all gas releasers
Bananas, ripe
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Carrots
Cauliflower
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Lettuce and other leafy greens
Parsley
Peas
Peppers
Squash
Sweet potatoes
Watermelon

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Did You Tune In to the Series Finale of Jon and Kate Plus 8?

LilSugar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Last night marked the end of an era for one of TV's most talked about families. The series finale of Jon and Kate Plus 8 aired after five seasons on TLC and showed the separated couple striving to be single parents. While this past year has been filled with loud headlines about the bunch, the show went out on a high note - reminding viewers that at the end of the day, it was about the great eight kids Jon and Kate had together. We've followed the crew's moves on and off the small screen for years so we were sad to see the show end. Did you tune in to bid adieu to the family?

Share your reaction to the finale in the comments below. For a bittersweet look back at photos of the family and episode recaps and quizzes from this past season, read more.

Jon and Kate Plus 8: "School Days" episode

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Jon and Kate Plus 8: "Time to Organize" episode

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Jon and Kate Plus 8: "Tea Party & Snakes" episode

View Tea Party and Snakes Photos ›

Jon and Kate Plus 8: "Farm to Table" episode

View Farm to Table Photos ›

Jon and Kate Plus 8: "Dude Ranch and Dress Up" episode

View Dude Ranch and Dress Up Photos ›

Jon and Kate Plus 8: "Battleship and Barber" episode

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Relive the growth, gossip and tales of the famous family by checking out our past coverage.

Photos courtesy of TLC

Amy Winehouse Is Wearing a Ring on Her Engagement Finger

PopSugarUK — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:30:00 -0800

We've been hearing rumours about Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil getting back together, and now Amy has got tongues wagging even more by wearing a ring on her engagement finger as she left a clinic in London today. Just last month she wore a shirt embroidered with Blake's Girl, and reports suggested the former couple had been sending each other love messages on Facebook, following Amy's dad Mitch allegedly finding the pair in bed together. They were granted a divorce back in July, but reports today claim that Amy apparently proposed to Blake, and he reportedly told friends:

"We both know we’ve only ever been divorced on paper. This is the right thing to do. She is wearing the engagement ring I gave her the first time round. I think it cost £2,000 from Tiffany. We’ve been talking five or six times a day. We changed our status to married on Facebook a couple of weeks back but that was more of a laugh. This is the real deal. She told me she wanted to get married again. I feel so happy."

Do you think Amy and Blake will get remarried?

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Healthy Eating Tip: Eat Five Colors a Day

FitSugar — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:00:00 -0700

We are more than halfway through March, which is also National Nutrition Month, so hopefully, you all are working hard to eat at least five servings of fruits and veggies daily. Well, I am going to up the ante: Try to eat five different colors fruits and veggies daily.

It is important to eat a rainbow since disease fighting antioxidants also give foods their color. The wider color palate you eat the wider the spectrum of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals you will be eating. Yep, downing just goji berries or drinking pomegranate juice is really not enough to be considered healthy eating.

To see how I have worked five colors into my meals, read more.

Breakfast: Blue - I throw a half of cup of frozen blueberries onto my morning oatmeal, and while the oatmeal cools the berries thaw.
Snack: Yellow - I like a little tropical fruit salad to get me through until lunch and mix sliced banana with sliced mango.
Lunch: Green - Spinach and arugula salad surely covers me for green.
Dinner: Orange - Roasted yams certainly cover the color orange.
Dessert: Red - Strawberries are at the beginning of their season and sliced or whole they make a wonderful dessert.

It is super easy to add a variety of color to your daily diet, but might require a little planning ahead and thinking back. You can substitute purple cabbage for green, red pepper for green, broccoli for cauliflower, yams for regular spuds . . . you get the point. Tell me below how you work color into your daily diet?

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