Healthy Diet Facts: Creating Healthy Meals

Diet tips # 5. Add a fruit and vegetable to create healthy meals.

• The strategy: This doesn't mean adding a fruit juice or veggie drink—which often contains no fiber, negligible vitamins and lots of calories—to lunch and dinner. (To wit: A 6-ounce serving of Tree Top Apple Juice contains 90 calories and only 0.2 grams of fiber—no better than Hi-C Candy Apple Cooler. By contrast, a medium apple contains 81 calories and 3.7 grams of fiber.) You need to add a whole fruit and a whole vegetable to your balanced healthy diet. Or, if adding them at mealtime is inconvenient, you can just aim to double your intake of both.
• Weight loss tips: To feel satisfied, you need a certain amount of weight in your stomach. A whole fruit or vegetable will give you that feeling of fullness. Meaning, you will likely eat less during and after your meal. Tip: Choose fruits and veggies with deeper color.
• Healthy diet facts: Fruits and vegetables are loaded with vitamins and phytochemicals. There are plenty of nutrients that ward off cardiovascular disease and cancer, which are often lost when we process fruits and vegetables into juice. So trading juice for whole produce can decrease your risk for these diseases.

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