Fruits and Veggies

Everyone ready to bust their bootie in the Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge?  The challenge starts today and it is also the last day to sign up, so if you haven't signed up already, now's your chance!

One of the ways to get points in the challenge is to eat 7 servings of fruits and vegetables in a day.  I am not a fruit person.  I have been making it a goal this month to eat one peice of fruit a day and have been mostly successful, but I really have to remind myself to eat fruit.  I eat salad almost every day and always cook up a few veggies with my dinner, but I'm probably not getting 7 servings most of the time so I've decided that I want to focus on this part of the challenge.

So before we even get started, I knew I needed a little reminder on what constitutes a serving of fruit.  Is one apple a serving?  One papaya?  One grape?  I really didn't know, and I figured if I wasn't sure about this, others might be wondering too, so here's the lowdown:

According to Canada's Food Guide:

1 apple, 1 banana, 1 peach, 1 nectarine, 1 pear, 1 plum, 1 orange, 1 kiwi = 1 serving
20 cherries, 20 grapes = 1 serving
1/2 papaya, 1/2 mango, 1/2 grapefruit = 1 serving

For veggies, melons, and juice, etc., the general rule is 1/2 cup = serving, but there are exceptions.  1/4 cup of dried fruit is a serving, and it takes a full cup of raw leafy greens to make a serving.

While we're at this, the food guide recommends 1 dark leafy green and 1 orange vegetable every day.  Good thing I love squash and sweet potato!  What's your favourite orange veggie?  Fruit and vegetable juices are ok, but you get more fibre from eating rather than drinking your servings.  And of course we know that it's better to steam, boil or bake than deep fry our veggies, but a little reminder couldn't hurt!

For more info, check out: 

The American guide has slightly different guidelines, but the same general idea here:  http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/index.html

You might find it interesting to see the food guidelines in Japan: 

This is a running/sometimes other healthy stuff blog and not a political one, but if you're into a little healthy political debate, do a little online search for food guide politics and industry influence.  Interesting stuff!