ZME Science

Fruits and vegetables are very important for your health and “Eat your fruits and vegetables” is one of the tried and true recommendations for a healthy diet and that is for good reason. They help you ward off heart disease and stroke, control blood pressure and cholesterol, prevent some types of cancer, avoid a painful intestinal ailment called diverticulitis, and guard against cataract and macular degeneration. The benefits are numerous. But how much do fruits retain their antioxidant content and how much fruit should you eat are facts less known.The average American gets a total of just three servings of fruits and vegetables a day. The latest dietary guidelines call for five to thirteen servings of fruits and vegetables a day, depending on one’s caloric intake. In the last years scientists have made a solid base of science to back up. The largest and longest study to date which was made by Harvard-based Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study, included almost 110,000 men and women whose health and dietary habits were followed for 14 years. The higher the average daily intake of fruits and vegetables, the lower the chances of developing cardiovascular disease.Eating more fruits and vegetables can also help lower cholesterol. In the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Family Heart Study, the 4466 subjects consumed on average a shade over 3 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. You could talk about the benefits they bring for days; but what you should learn is that you should try to eat more fruits and vegetables and a variety of different fruits and vegetables.

Belgian scientists report that fruits and vegetables retain the antioxidant content in the days after purchase, even as tell-tale signs of spoilage appear. In some cases, antioxidant levels actually rise. The results showed that, in the days following purchase, fruits and vegetables retain their antioxidant content.

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