5 Fabulous Tips for Fruits and Vegetables

The following 5 Fabulous Tips for may help you make great choices of fruits and vegetables for your daily consumptions:

(I) Include at least one orange and one dark green vegetable to your daily diet to get some vitamin A and folate.

Orange vegetables include squash, carrots, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, or yams. You can substitute orange-colored fruit for an orange vegetable though the amount of vitamin A will, of course, vary.

Orange colored fruits include cantaloupes, nectarines, mangos, papaya, apricots, and peaches. Dark green vegetables include dandelion greens, broccoli, arugula, chard, mustard greens, collards, spinach, kale or romaine lettuce.

(II) Do not compromise on your nutrition even when you are short on time.

Pre-bagged vegetables, like leafy greens, baby carrots or green beans can be easily prepared for a salad or tossed for a quick stir-fry.

(III) Frozen or canned vegetables have some nutritional value but fresh is usually considered the best choice.

Frozen foods retain most of their nutrients.

Select only canned vegetables with low sodium content. Or, you can drain these vegetables to lower their salt and sodium content.

When choosing frozen fruit packed in juice, select unsweetened frozen fruit. Fruits in sugar syrup contain more calories.

Other fruits are sometimes packed in pear juice because it is sweeter than many other fruit juices.

(IV) Choose vegetables and fruits over just buying juices.

Fruits and vegetables eaten whole contain more fiber and help with easier digestion.

An occasional vegetable juice drink may be beneficial. However, avoid vegetables juices with high salt content.

Choose 100% fruit juices over fruit-flavored drinks. “Fruit juice drinks", (they may contain very low amounts of the actual juice), cocktails or punches.

(V) Choose vegetables and fruits prepared with little or no added fat, sugar or salt.  Some products, like vegetable chips, ketchup, fruit candies, fruit jams or spreads and vegetable or fruit drinks or punches may have a high level of sugar or salt. It is best to avoid these foods. Also, avoid poutine, French fries, zucchini sticks, tempura, and onion rings if you can get, for instance, a baked sweet potato or potato or have a plate of salad instead.

Source : articlesbase