Thursday, April 23, 2009

Eat your veggies




Firstly, I apologize to any of my friends and family who are reading this and having the urge to roll their eyes and mutter "again with vegetables?" Because I have maybe been a bit of broken record about this lately. In my bid to eat a little healthier, I started doing a little research. I'd heard we should be eating 5 servings of fruit and veggies every day. Combined? 2.5 of each? What counts as a serving? Who knows? Not me. Well, until now.

In comes the food pyramid, which I'm fairly certain I haven't seen since grade school. It has kept up with the times and it's now myfoodpyramid.gov. Who knows maybe they even have a twitter account.

I learned that I am supposed to be eating 2.5 cups of vegetables EVERY DAY. Now 2.5 cups of veggies a day is totally do-able, I realize this. Even before my healthier eating push, I already was eating a good amount of veggies, if they had said 2.5 cups a few days a week, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash. But every single day of the week? For the rest of my life?

So have a salad with lunch. I can do that. The clincher? 2 cups of raw leafy greens only count as 1 cup of veggies! So, that means 5 cups of salad every day? Oh, and the fruits? Yeah, now you have to count those separately. You need 1.5 cups of fruit in addition the veggies.

I'm so on to the Food Pyramid's little game, by the time you're finished eating all of this good for you stuff, you're way too full to eat Doritos. That sneaky food pyramid.

2 comments:

  1. Oh man. Last spring I got on this seriously intense healthy eating kick. I'm sure my friends and family rolled their eyes a lot...so I know exactly how you feel!

    I held strong until about December or January, and then it all went downhill for various reasons.

    But now I'm excited about the (outdoor) farmer's market starting again- it makes this sort of thing so much easier!

    So as far as getting enough veggies every day, you should get a juicer! It makes it fun and easy, especially when you are on the go.

    Another idea- try replacing lettuce with spinach leaves...nice texture and much more beneficial!

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  2. Ha. I think that might be at the heart of my healthy eating kick, I'm still trying to make up for the holiday (and winter) eating!

    I like the sounds of a juicer! I will have to look into that. Are they terribly expensive?

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