Enjoy more fruits and veggies: consumers have three resources to help guard their health as they gather food for their tables. Read, eat, and be wise

Vibrant Life, July-August, 2005 by Georgia E. Hodgkin

Remember the Food Guide Pyramid? It belongs to a family of three important guides to sound nutrition. Close cousins are the Dietary Guidelines and the Nutrition Facts Label found on all packaged foods. The Dietary Guidelines describes good choices in each of the food groups within the Pyramid. The Nutrition Facts Label states what a serving is and how many servings are in the packaged food. Two of the three are under revision with another in the process of adding an item. Vibrant Life will keep you up-to-date on all three.

You may have noticed a change in the Nutrition Facts Label. Gradually, the amount of trans fatty acid in a serving will appear on labels and become standard by January 2006. Why the sudden interest in trans fat? This substance appears to act the same as saturated fat in the body, enhancing the production of cholesterol. In addition, it reduces HDL, the "good" cholesterol.

As we purchase and eat more processed foods, we increase the trans fats in our diets. Heating unsaturated fat--as in baked goods or deep fat fryers at fast food restaurants--changes the configuration of the fatty acid from a cis fat to a trans fat. The long chains of carbon bend and fold from cis to trans at the carbon of unsaturation. Seems simple, but the result creates consequences for clean, smooth, unblocked arteries.

Changes Coming

Scientists continue to study changes that may make the Food Guide Pyramid more helpful to the public. Several models have been proposed, but none has been chosen as yet by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The popular press has published a preview of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, the cousin that's revised every five years. This newest version stresses the need for abundant fruits and vegetables.

Do you meet the recommendation of 5-A-Day servings of fruits and vegetables as listed in the 2000 Dietary Guidelines? Most citizens don't. The average fruit and vegetable intake in California is 3.8 servings per day. That's 1.2 servings short in a part of the country teeming with marvelous flesh produce year round. With current transportation methods, berries, melons, peaches, nectarines, pears, and mangoes are available anywhere at any time. Only the price hints that the fruit may not be in season in your area.

The new 2005 Dietary Guidelines recommend not five, but nine servings of fruits and vegetables every day! Science continues to support the nutritional blueprint recommended in 1890 by a woman named Ellen White. She wrote, "Fruits, grains, and vegetables, prepared in a simple way, free from spice and grease of all kinds, make--with milk or cream--the most healthful diet" (Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 92). Ongoing research reveals the health-promoting phytochemicals found in fruits and vegetables. Broccoli, for example, offers thousands of these various chemicals. Blueberries are touted for their vast array of phytochemicals. I'm confident that science will find even more benefits in the years to come.

Size Is the Secret

How can nine servings of fruits and vegetables fit into the meals we consume daily? Serving size is the key. The serving size for flesh fruit is based on a "medium-size" fruit--for example, a banana six inches long. This means that a banana 10 inches long is 1.66 servings.

Just a half cup of cooked or raw cut-up fruits or vegetables makes one serving. Next time you make a salad, measure the contents. You'll discover that most of us serve ourselves closer to two cups or more of lettuce at a single meal. Check your other favorite foods to see how close to that nine-serving suggestion you come each day.

Phytochemicals are powerful protectors of health. As cancer moves ever closer to becoming our nation's number one killer, it becomes even more important to follow the 2005 Dietary Guidelines. They were written to guide choices of foods within the Food Guide Pyramid. And don't forget to check the Nutrition Facts Label to discover the amount of food that makes up one serving.

Include plenty of phytochemicals in your meals with the following recipes using abundant helpings of fresh, healthy, life-sustaining fruits and vegetables.