It's an easy one! Well, it's fun anyway. Well, it's an eating assignment so it CAN be fun. Unless you hate fruits and veggies. In which case, we need to talk!

8-10 servings of fruits and veggies a day is a great goal for people trying to lose weight. WHY? Filling up on the good stuff FIRST leaves less room for "devils" food if you know what I mean

And B - the American Heart Association has given two thumbs up to the DASH Eatin Plan. Dash stands for Dietary Approaches to Stopping Hypertension.

The plan encourages:

7-8 servings of grains and grain products daily

4-5 servings of vegetables daily

4-5 servings of fruit daily

2-3 servings of low or no fat dairy food daily

2 or less servings of meats, poultry & fish daily

2-3 servings of fats and oils daily

4-5 servings of nuts, seeds & dry beans weekly

5 servings of sweets per week

For more on the plan, log on to:

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash/new_dash.pdf

Page 5 provides diet essentials: daily servings, serving sizes, example foods and notes on the significance of each food group.

Your homework - read through at least page 5 even if you don't have hypertension. You'll learn a lot.

Extra credit: post the number of fruits and veggie servings you're going to consume today. Discuss whether or not you need to improve in the fruit and veggie area. Post your road blocks if you're not consuming enough. Post your tips for consuming more if you have any.

Home work completed. I actually read through page 10 and printed 5-7 as I need a refresher on portion sizes. The tips too are very helpful such as how to get more fruits in or more calorie saving tips.

I am definitely better with veggie and frt eating on the weekdays. Tonight my chicken soup I made was loaded with carrots, celery and peas that is how I try to get the extras in.

Hope everyone had a good day.

I had two servings of fruit and two servings of veggies today. I am going ot get one more veggie serving in before bed. I feel inspired!

I am getting my fruits and veggies by:

Having fruit salad with breakfast (1 serving)
Having raw carrots & celery for a snack (2 servings)
Bringing a small green salad in my lunch (1 serving)
Snacking on an apple and an orange (2 servings)
Having 2 veggies at dinner (2 servings)
Having a banana after dinner (1 serving)

I would never post my whole menu here -- I eat a lot, it would take several screens.

I do pretty well in the veggie department already. Todays lunch is a slice of quiche that has 1/2 serving of veggies in it. I'll have celery sticks and carrot sticks with it (full serving of each). If eating out I'll have a nice big salad and a serving of whatever veggie they have to offer. If lucky enough to be hosting wrestling I'll make some nice roasted veggies and a salad or coleslaw.
I think for a treat tonight I'll make a dish of veggies marinated in honey balsamic dressing. My friend and I once ate an entire 2 quart container of it in one sitting.
Thats 4 1/2 - 5 1/2 veggies

Fruit I'll be having a homemade apple crisp for dessert tonight, or baked apples. I'll have a serving of mandarin oranges this afternoon also. I limit myself to 2 because my last blood test showed I was almost borderline diabetic and I'm trying to keep it from crossing that line. So I have my servings all set and ready to go.

Laurie

HOLY COW! I thought I was doing good to get 5 servings of fruits and vegies in a day. This is going to be a challenge. But, I think, it will help with the feeling hungry and not being able to eat.

So, for today, I will add fruit to every meal and snack on fruit and vegies rather than other things. I will mix fruits to get those additional levels in.

I think this is going to be a challenge in that I don't eat fruit, unless it's right there, ready to eat. So, for now on, I think I will put my fruit servings out on the counter where I can see them.

Interesting article, this one is going off to my doc.

I make the 4-5 veggie serving per day and have 3 fruit servings too. I am wondering about talking to my dietician about adding another fruit and cutting out something else.

Veggies today- salad with leaf lettuce, carrotts, cukes, cabbage, tomatos
Fruit- 2 servings of orange segments.

P>S> I was not able to get on line yesterday- internet problems. I missed you all!

Today:
Coffee:
B- Soy hot chocolate and a WW bagle w/light cream cheese. (2 grain servings, 1 1/2 dairy)

L - Left over Greek Feta burger (lamb, feta and spinach) topped with tomatoes, lettuce and hummus. There is a lot of spinach in the burger itself, so I am counting that as one serving and the tomatoes/lettuce as another.(2 grain servings, 2 veggie, maybe 1/2 dairy)

S- string cheese (1 dairy)

S- mini carrots (which is usually at least 2 servings)

D- Grilled chicken breasts, brocoli and sweet potatoes. Strawberries for dessert. (3 veggie, and 1-2 fruit)

That's about 7 veggie servings, 1-2 fruit, 3 dairy (I'm counting soy milk in the dairy dept.), 4 grain, and 2 meat.)

That is IF I stick to the plan...

Dawn

ok... did the assignment... here is today..

B-1 apple, oatmeal
S- granola
L-pb sandwich, 1 c roasted zuccini, 1 salad
S-fruit smoothie with 3/4 c strawberries, 1/4 cup each blueberry and raspberry, 1/2 c radishes
D-cauliflower paprikash, 2 oz ww pasta, 1 salad

jacqui

Dangit, I wish this had been yesterday, when we had salad, a multi-veggie stirfry & vegetable/shrimp stuffed wontons for dinner, with apple crisp for dessert

Alrighty, the fruit & vegetable plan:

Breakfast: a pear & Luna bar (a little nauseous this AM, the Luna bars seem to stay down)
Snack: Yogurt & a honeybell
Lunch: salad (assorted greens, tomato); kiwi; other stuff
Snack: probably not a vegetable or fruit here. . .oh! wait! I'll have some grapes with whatever else
Dinner: green beans; homemade tomato sauce; other stuff; apple crisp

Obviously, could use some effort in the vegetable area. . .fruit never seems to be a problem, but I just can't work up the effort to feel guilty for eating lots of fruit. I really like it, I only buy good quality stuff, and as soon as it gets home, I get it ready to eat.

I'm having trouble finding a variation of vegetables that the boyfriend will eat, so I'll admit to sticking to safe things most of the time: corn; green beans of varying sorts; bell peppers; tomatoes.

D

OK, I did my reading assignment.

Today (Monday) I will get 2 servings of fruits and 6 servings of vegs.

I started having a BIG bowl of soup (2-3 cups vegs - some combonation of bok choy, celery, snap peas, snow peas, carrots, broccoli, asparagus, green onion, etc. - plus one cup of broth) at 5pm. This was originally so that I could last until 7pm to eat dinner with dh. This has really helped boost my veg intake. Also, made me not as hungry for dinner - so I eat smaller portions.

I find that varying the broth (Japanese, Chinese, Thai, fish or veg stock, European, American, etc.) helps keep it interesting.

I’m a stay at home mom. I find that it is easiest to cut the vegs all up at lunch time and then dump in the broth for 3 mins to cook at 5pm when I get home from teaching band class.

Some days I have a BIG salad with lettuce plus vegs above instead of soup. (Salads get delivered with dinner co-op meals a lot. I eat them the next day.)

I find it really easy to stick to this plan on the days I eat lunch/dinner at home (which is most days…)

Denise

I definately need to improve in this area and hopefully this week is the week for me, I did a major shopping spree today and purchased several veggies and some fruit. I went to the website and actually copied off some of the info. My family has BIG time history of high BP and I am actually on 1 pill right now so this is very important for me. Seeing a family member suffer from severe side effects of stroke drive this home alot as I know NO ONE wants to have a life when they cannot function.
Thanks for this assignment and I will start I guess today since it is now Monday, but after I have had some sleep LOL