How many fruits and vegetables should I eat?

Canada’s newest Food Guide has taken away food serving guidelines and instead recommends that half your plate should be fruits and vegetables. The other half should be protein and whole-grains. 

Eating fruits and vegetables can help protect you against chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and cancer. The Canadian Cancer Society states that eating many fruits and vegetables may help protect against 14 different cancers!

Is it okay to eat the same fruits and vegetables everyday?

We are all creatures of habit and it’s easy to fall into a rut with our daily foods. I myself love banana and peanut butter on toast for breakfast, and I could easily eat that everyday!

However, it is important to have a variety of fruits and vegetables in your diet to ensure that you are getting all the important nutrients that you need.

Try to include 30-40 different plants, in your diet, per week. Look for a variety of different colours.

Diversity is important for gut health!

No time to prepare all those fruits and vegetables?!

If the thought of spending hours cutting all those fruits and vegetables for your daily meals feels too overwhelming, you can look in the frozen section for pre-cut produce. Frozen options are often less expensive than fresh and you also don’t need to worry about eating them quickly before they get rotten. This also reduces food waste. 

While they may be more expensive than frozen, grocery stores also have prepackaged salads and cut up fresh vegetables if you prefer your produce fresh.

Looking for more information

If you’re looking for more information or some specific research about the benefits to eating fruits and vegetables, check out this Blue Zones article.