The recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables every day can seem daunting to some folks. In fact, many of us can really only manage to get our vegetables on our dinner plate and a piece of fruit in between lunch and dinner as a snack. Neither of these is a bad thing, but we’re not getting up to five servings under these circumstances. So FoodFacts.com has some suggestions that will help you meet those recommendations more often and keep your diet interesting and flavorful.

Think about your breakfast
Most people think of breakfast as a bowl of cereal or oatmeal, eggs, or pancakes – the traditional breakfast foods we’re used to (especially those that we’re eating in a rush to get out the door) don’t include fruits or vegetables. Believe it or not, breakfast can be one of the easiest meals in which to include fruits or vegetables.

If you like yogurt and granola, pick up some of your favorite fruits – berries, peaches, grapes, or anything else you’re partial to and you can quickly make a great breakfast parfait by layering the yogurt, granola and fruit in a glass. This is both refreshing and filling.

When eggs are on the menu, choose omelets you can fill with spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, zucchini or any other vegetable you choose. And, if you’re rushed for breakfast, you can keep a bowl of cut-up fruit in your refrigerator to mix into vanilla yogurt to grab and go.

Use a fruit bowl
Have you ever gone to the grocery store and purchased fruits that you knew your whole family would enjoy only to find them getting softer and softer in the refrigerator day by day? Ever hear the old adage “Out of sight, out of mind?”. We think this applies directly to fruit in refrigerators. Get a pretty bowl, fill it with fruit and leave it out where your family can see it. They’ll be much more likely to help themselves to a piece from the bowl because they don’t have to remember to go looking for it in the fridge.

The art of the hidden vegetable
Here’s another old adage we like to apply to vegetables — “What you don’t know can’t hurt you”. We know how difficult it is for some people to eat vegetables. You’d be surprised how many adults have just as much of a problem with them as children do. There are ways to use vegetables that your family will never suspect … and they’ll actually really love. A few thoughts are: shredded carrots in meatloaf, chopped spinach in meatballs, and cauliflower in mashed potatoes — not to mention zucchini bread, carrot bread, and pumpkin bread.

Fruit for dessert
While we understand we’re all trying to be more conscious of our eating habits, we don’t have to give up on dessert completely. You can make an interesting and refreshing fruit salad for everyone to enjoy after dinner or anytime. It’s tasty and healthy and will leave everyone feeling satisfied that they were able to enjoy an after-dinner “treat”.

If you have any other ideas that will help us all reach the recommended five per day servings of fruits and vegetables, please let FoodFacts.com in on them and we’ll make them available to the whole community.

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Foodfacts.com recently came across this article in TIME magazine regarding a “miracle fruit” that changes sour into sweet. How? Read below to learn more!

If you have any foodie friends, you’ve probably heard of miracle fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum), a native West African berry that looks like a cranberry, but acts like a psychedelic for your taste buds.

Eat the miracle fruit on its own and it doesn’t taste like much of anything. But let the juices coat your mouth, then consume sour foods — like lemons, limes, goat cheese, beer, vinegar, pickles — and a remarkable thing happens: they all taste sweet.
“Beer tastes like sweet juice. Lemon tastes like sweet orange,” Keiko Abe of the University of Tokyo told Discovery News.

The fruit’s effect lasts for an hour, and like other trippy experiences, it’s more fun to do it in groups. So adventuresome eaters seek out “flavor tripping parties” during which people pop a berry, then gorge on all manner of sour foods. Guinness beer tastes like chocolate. Tabasco sauce tastes like “hot doughnut glaze,” as one flavor tripper was quoted as saying in this story in the New York Times.

This week, Abe reported the key to miracle fruit’s magic. To figure it out, Abe’s research team used cell cultures to test human taste receptors at various pHs. According to Discovery News:

The key ingredient in the fruit, a protein known as miraculin, binds strongly to the sweet taste receptors on our tongues, Abe reported, but it does not activate the receptors at neutral pH.

After the acidic food is swallowed, miraculin returns to the inactive shape, but it remains bound to the sweet receptor for up to an hour, ready to receive a new acid trigger. The strong binding explains the molecule’s lasting effect.

Abe said the sweet-making power of miraculin was stronger than nearly all other known sweeteners. Given that it’s calorie-free, of course there has been no shortage of interest in developing it into a commercially usable sweetener. Perhaps it will be in Japan, where the production of a purified miraculin extract is currently being sought. As for the U.S., however, a 1974 ruling by the Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of an extract.

(TIME)

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At Foodfacts.com we like to share the latest news on everything food related. In recent years there has been a tremendous movement in promoting organic foods due to the fear of pesticides and other chemicals leaking into much of the available produce. Many people have taken their health into their own hands by starting their own organic gardens. Check out the story below describing one woman’s battle in creating her own organic garden.

A Michigan woman is being charged with a misdemeanor offense and is facing up to 93 days in jail. Her crime? Planting a vegetable garden—in her own yard. Her front yard, that is.

Like many consumers today, Julie Bass, of Oak Park, Mich., appreciates the taste and healthfulness of organic vegetables, but isn’t much of a fan of how much going organic costs at the store. So, like many health-minded consumers, she planted a vegetable garden on her property.

But Bass chose to take the unusual step of installing neatly arranged raised beds of vegetables in her front, rather than back, yard. Bass explained her unorthodox garden location (and showed off how neat and organized it is, for those curious) to a local TV station:
“We thought it’d be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help,” she said.

Front yard or back, it’s her property, and she’s allowed to do with it what she pleases, right? Wrong, say the local authorities, citing local codes that require front yards to have only “suitable” live plant material. City planners say that vegetables, for some reason, don’t qualify for the standard, even though they are certainly alive, and certainly are planted. To some, this sort of code enforcement makes the restrictions against drying clothes on a clothesline seem reasonable.

Bass was given a warning, then a ticket, and now she has been charged with a misdemeanor for violating the City of Oak Park’s planning code. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for July 26, and Bass is facing up to 93 days in jail.

For growing vegetables.

On her own property.

Bass isn’t giving in, however, and it looks like she has plenty of support on her side. A thread at Reddit with information on rallies and petitions to stop the prosecution has already generated 299 comments (and counting).

Bass does have a backyard, but she has no plans to uproot and replant her garden back there any time soon:
“They say, ‘Why should you grow things in the front?’ Well, why shouldn’t I? They’re fine. They’re pretty. They’re well maintained,” said Bass.

(Time Magazine)

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Eating these non-organic fruits and veggies will leave you exposed to an average of Ten pesticides a day. So try your best to buy organic when shopping for the ‘Dirty Dozen’.

A quick guide to Twelve produce items that are the most exposed to pesticides known as ‘The Dirty Dozen’. Watch here:

If you can afford to buy a few more Organic items, then, these are the next group you want to focus on:
1. Lettuce
2. Blueberries (Imported)
3. Carrots
4. Green Beans (Domestic)
5. Pears
6. Plums (Imported)
7. Summer Squash
8. Cucumbers (Imported)

New research shows that some pesticides used on strawberries, grapes, lettuce and other produce may disrupt male hormones.

But remember, these produce items are still healthy for you and much, much more nutritious than any processed or sugar filled food.

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Sure, it’s easy to get carried away with the aisles filled with bags of Valentine’s Day candy. Hey, you might even feel a little guilted into buying these indulgent treats. But be careful, some of these treats are filled with unhealthy ingredients, calories and fats. A chocolate free Valentine’s Day?? No, no, we aren’t suggesting that! But there are healthier Valentine’s Day treats and we tell you all about them in this video:

And remember, everything in moderation!

Check out health scores for your favorite candies here:

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Eating these non-organic fruits and veggies will leave you exposed to an average of Ten pesticides a day. So try your best to buy organic when shopping for the ‘Dirty Dozen’.

A quick guide to Twelve produce items that are the most exposed to pesticides known as ‘The Dirty Dozen’. Watch here:

If you can afford to buy a few more Organic items, then, these are the next group you want to focus on:
1. Lettuce
2. Blueberries (Imported)
3. Carrots
4. Green Beans (Domestic)
5. Pears
6. Plums (Imported)
7. Summer Squash
8. Cucumbers (Imported)

New research shows that some pesticides used on strawberries, grapes, lettuce and other produce may disrupt male hormones.

But remember, these produce items are still healthy for you and much, much more nutritious than any processed or sugar filled food.

Share on Facebook

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Kenneth Woliner MD

Dr. Kenneth Woliner loves discovering unusual fruits. It’s partly because he believes that their exciting new flavors encourage healthy eating. But they often have unexpected health benefits, too.

Foodfacts.com knows, like so many of our members and readers, that some fruits appear on the scene because of their health benefits. Açai berry is a good example. These little antioxidant powerhouses are tasty. But it’s their reputation for fighting fat that brought them to the US. Read more…

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Fruit Facts | Foodfacts.com

Foodfacts.com observes that fruits are considered to have highly dietetic value and they hold a fantastic source of essential minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, vitamins and phyto nutrients. Normally, if you want to find out all the benefits of these natural medicines, you would need to go through several nutrition articles. We can’t list all the resources we have gone through to find out which fruits are the best for you and are the most nutritionally crammed, (there’s a lot) but we will do ou best to lay out the a few fruits that many feel are the best. Read more…

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Peach | Foodfacts.com

Sweet, juicy, and good for you, this classic summer fruit is also surprisingly versatile. Read more…

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Acerola | Foodfacts.com

Foodfacts.com really liked this particular post about this particular fruit. We don’t even think that it should be called any other name then Extreme Amount of Vitamin C. The real name for this very awesome small fruit is Acerola. Read more…

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