Health Food Guide

Fruits and vegetables are not only good for your health; they’re great for your appearance too. These mighty dynamos packed with vitamins and minerals register a low count when it comes to calories.

The reason is the volume of fruit to the calorie count. It’s called the food’s energy density. The energy part of that phrase refers to the calories in a food. If you take a cup of fried ice cream and a cup of grapes, the cup of grapes has a lower energy density. In other words, fewer calories for the same volume. What scientists didn’t realize was that people don’t eat until they reached a specific calorie intake; rather, they eat until they reach a certain volume of food.

 

A survey taken by the Consumer Reports National Research Center found that out of the 21,623 readers that completed the survey, there were three distinct groups. The first group consisted of 16 percent of their sampling that were thin all their lives. The second group that contained 15 percent of the people, lost at least ten percent of their body weight and kept it off for the last three years. The last group were the diet disasters that failed at diets but would still like to loose weight. These people comprised 42 percent of the sample. This left 27 percent of those surveyed not fitting into any particular category.

 

The survey identified six different behavior patterns shared by the lucky losers. The one behavior that the thin group shared was eating five or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables a minimum of five out of every seven days.

 

There are two theories why this works for dieters. The first is the energy density mentioned earlier. In a study done by Habor, Heaton, Murphy and Burroughs on satiety and dietary fiber, the group found that the form of the fruit or vegetable makes a difference in how full people feel. They found that a whole apple made the person feel fuller than eating the puree of an apple or drinking fiber free apple juice. The same was true with all fruits.

 

A second theory is that the fruits and vegetables provide not just the volume and fiber to feel full, but also the vitamins and minerals that your body might require. Before anyone created the food pyramid, man had to eat.

 

Man has a natural mental meter from primitive times to tell him when he’s lacking nutrition and drive him to find the food he needs to satisfy his requirement. Long ago, man educated himself to ignore his body signals and now, instead of hearing, “eat berries”; he just hears “EAT”.

 

When you consume additional servings of fruits and vegetables, you not only fill your body with low energy density foods to fill you, you also put additional vitamins and minerals into your body. If the body has enough nourishing foods, the brain stops sending the signal to eat. Little by little, weight seems to drop as if by magic.

 

With all the focus on weight in today’s society, it just makes sense to make a minor change in menu planning and include more servings of fruits and vegetables. Contrary to what most people believe, smart shopping and good planning make fresh fruit and vegetables a bargain for anyone’s table. Besides being a savings at the grocery store, it saves on doctor bills, diet fad foods and dental care. You may find, however, that you do have one extra expense, buying new clothes for the thinner you.

 

 

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