Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables offer a number of health benefits, and increased fiber is just one of them. The five-serving-a-day goal has been well established and publicized. That may seem like a lot, but when you start counting, you’ll find that it is not really that difficult to reach. They are a great food value when you are trying to lose weight, since they provide needed bulk while generally being low in calories.

In order to get the most fiber benefit from your fruits and vegetables, here are a few tips:

• Eat whole fruits and vegetables as much as possible. The skin contains many nutrients, as well as fiber. And the seeds in items like fresh tomatoes add fiber that’s missing in many processed tomato products.

• Choose fresh fruits and vegetables over frozen or canned if necessary, choose and frozen over canned. The more an item is processed, the more likely it is to have had the healthful nutrients and fiber removed and undesirable things like salt added.

• Don’t just think of salads. True, salads are a low-calorie, healthy addition to your diet. But they may not pack the fiber punch that other vegetable servings do. Lettuce, for example, is not one of the better sources of fiber, generally containing less than 1 gram per serving.

The following is the amount of fiber in a 1-cup serving of some common fruits and vegetables:
• Prunes—12 grams
• Avocado—10 grams
• Green peas—9 grams
• Raspberries—8 grams
• Pumpkin and winter squash—6 or 7 grams
• Collard greens—5 grams
• Potato, medium—5 grams
• Pear, medium—5 grams
• Apple, large—5 grams
• Corn—4 grams
• Green beans—4 grams
• Asparagus—4 grams
• Bell pepper—3 grams
• Strawberries—3 grams
• Banana—3 grams
• Cabbage—3 grams
• Eggplant—2 grams
• Broccoli—2 grams
• Peaches—2 grams
• Pineapple—2 grams

This Tip was published in '500 HIGH-FIBER RECIPES by "DICK LOGUE" - p28 To p29'