Eating your Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables – Conclusions

 Experiments  3 Responses »
Apr 292012
 

For the last week, I’ve been attempting to eat the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables that is set out in the Canada Food Guide. The target number for an adult male like myself is 7-10.

However, to know where I’ve gotten to, you should see where I started. Check out day 1 of eating the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

To see how day 6 went, check out Happiness Experiment 22, Day 6.

My servings of fruits and vegetables for today

I won’t go into as much detail today. I’m a bit tired of both planning out and detailing out part of my daily diet.

Suffice to say though, I made it to 8 servings of fruits and vegetable today.

Conclusions

Well, a week of eating the Canada Food Guide number of recommended servings of fruits and vegetables was more of a challenge than I thought.

It really is a fairly large amount of food, and if you don’t eat healthy all day, it’s incredibly easy to fall behind.

As I said at the beginning of this experiment, I don’t think there’s any doubt as to the long-term benefits of eating a large number of fruits and vegetables. However, I was looking to see if there any shorter-term benefits

With regard to short-term impacts, my results were mixed.

I didn’t see any bump in energy levels, but as I have freely admitted throughout the experiment, I’m feeling sick, so I’ve been a bit under the weather all week.

However, on the plus side, I’m down 0.8lbs in my weigh in. I don’t think fruits and vegetables have any substantial weight loss powers. Instead, I suspect that when you eat 7-10 servings of vegetables in a day, you are too full to eat junk food!

Another happy experiment!

Eating your Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables Day 6

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Apr 282012
 

A few days ago in this experiment, I was faced with the fact that eating junk food made it difficult to eat the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

Well, it turns out the problem is even more challenging than that. If you even fail to eat servings of fruits and vegetables with each meal, it can be a challenge to eat the full, recommended number of fruits and vegetables as outlined in the Canada Food Guide.

If you are just joining me now, and want to see the explanation for this experiment in more detail, check out day 1 of eating the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

If you want to see how things went yesterday, check out Happiness Experiment 22, Day 5.

So, how have things gone today?

Tough. As I hinted earlier, skipping breakfast this morning set me off on the wrong note for this week. Lunch was fast food, so I really didn’t add anything to my total of fruits and vegetables.

So, it took a bit of work, but I managed to reach the 7-10 servings goal. An apple, 2 servings of dragonfruit (which is AWESOME if you haven’t tried it), 2 servings of California mix veggies, and 3 1/2 servings of fruit smoothies (my wife bought me a treat since I was doing this experiment). That brings me to 8 and a half servings of fruits and veggies for today.

Eating your Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables Day 5

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Apr 272012
 

For the last 5 days in this experiment, I’ve been trying to eat the daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables as described in the Canada Food Guide.

If you are just joining me now, and want to see the explanation for this experiment in more detail, check out day 1 of eating the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

If you want to see how yesterday went, you can see check out yesterday in Happiness Experiment 22.

Eating the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day – Day 3

Well, it’s day 5 of this experiment and I realize just how much I need to go grocery shopping! 7-10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day means I go through groceries amazingly fast!

I’m still feeling a bit under the weather today, so I drank 3 servings of Orange Juice (3 helpings of fruit). I also ate an apple (1 serving of fruit), 1 serving of carrots, and I finished my day with a veggie laden pasta (3.5 servings of vegetables).

This brings me to a total of 8.5 servings of fruits and vegetables for the day. I’m out of apples and I’m out of kale. Tomorrow, I definitely need to go grocery shopping!

Eating your Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables Day 4

 Experiments  3 Responses »
Apr 262012
 

For this week’s experiment, I’m trying to eat the Canada Food Guide recommended servings of fruits and vegetables each day.

If you are just joining me now, and want to see the explanation for this experiment in more detail, check out day 1 of eating the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

To see how things went yesterday in this, my 22nd happiness experiment, check out yesterday in the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables experiment.

Now that we’re all caught up, let’s talk about the how today went.

Day 3 of the Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables

Well, I’ll start off with describing how I’m feeling. I’m not certain if I’ll get any results from this experiment, because I feel like I’m getting sick. I have swollen glands, am coughing, sneezing, and the whole nine yards.

All the same, I still hit my goals for the day, thanks in no small part to the smoothie I made to have with breakfast. 2 servings of orange juice, two servings of berries and an entire banana had me at 5 total servings of fruits and vegetables before 9am in the morning.

Throughout the rest of the day, I tacked on an extra 3 servings of fruits and vegetables to bring myself up to 8 servings for the day. Another day between 7 and 10 servings of fruits and vegetables for today. Success!

Eating your Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables Day 3

 Experiments  1 Response »
Apr 252012
 

If you are just joining me now, and want to see the explanation for this experiment in more detail, check out day 1 of eating the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

To see how yesterday went, check out my previous entry in this experiment on eating your recommended servings of fruits and vegetables.

I’m still feeling a bit run down today. It’s the tail end of the cold I’m fighting off and the fact that I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.

That said, I still got a lot done, so I’m counting it as a day well spent.

Day 3 of Eating the Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables

Today, possibly because I was feeling tired, I gave in and ate some junk food.

It’s surprisingly hard to eat both junk food AND the appropriate amount of fruits and vegetables. I’ve always thought that the recommendations of the Canada food guide were a large amount of food, today really drove that home. There’s just a point at which you’ve eaten your fill, junk food or not, and eating more healthy food is a challenge.

Today I started the day with a large cup of orange juice (2 servings of fruits), ate some of the leftover taco wraps from yesterday (2.5 servings of fruits and vegetables over 2 meals), 1 and 1/2 apples (1.5 servings of fruits), and 2 servings of baked kale chips (2 servings of vegetables).

This brings me to a total of 8 servings of fruits and vegetables for today.

I’ll be honest, so far the baked kale chips are completely saving me. From a $1.99 bundle of kale, I’ve gotten about 8 servings of vegetables.

I’m almost out of kale, and part of the challenge of this experiment is eating a variety of foods. So, tonight when I prepare my food for tomorrow, it’s time to get a bit more creative in the kitchen!

Happiness Experiment 22: Eating your Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables Day 2

 Experiments  2 Responses »
Apr 242012
 

Yesterday I started an experiment involving to eating my recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day (as per the Canada Good Guide).

As I mentioned before, I don’t dispute the fact that eating the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables will have a beneficial long-term effect on your health and happiness. They key is whether or not it has a similar impact on your short-term health and happiness.

If you want to see the explanation for this experiment in more detail, check out day 1 of eating the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

Day 2 of Eating the Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables per Day

This day was a surprisingly easy one for me. I like to think I’m seeing my energy improve, but I caught a bit of a cold over the weekend, so it might just be that passing. We’ll see if it keeps up.

Today, I had a spinach and eggs on a bagel for breakfast (1 serving of vegetables), a bottle of mixed pomegranate and orange juice (2 servings of fruits and vegetables), 2 sliced apples (2 servings of fruits and vegetables), 2 cups of baked kale chips (2 servings of fruits and vegetables), and a wraps containing lentils (a fruit – check it out, it kind of blew my mind too), spinach (a vegetable), and grated carrots. I’ll give myself the equivalent of 1 more serving of fruits and vegetables for dinner, bringing me up to a total of 8 servings today, which is well within the 7-10 recommended by the Canada Food Guide.

All of these extra fruits and vegetables have yet to come with any “digestive consequences” either. Perhaps this experiment will be easier than I thought!

Happiness Experiment 22: Eating your Recommended Servings of Fruits and Vegetables

 Experiments  6 Responses »
Apr 232012
 

Now, to start off with, let’s get the obvious question out of the way.

I’m not disputing that eating your daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables is a good thing or a bad thing. Scientific studies have clearly shown that the long-term benefits towards health and energy are clear.

However, what are the short-term benefits?

For my age and gender, the Canada Food Guide recommends 7-10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

If I’m honest and realistic, I probably eat 3-4 servings of fruit and vegetables on average per day. That’s a long way from 7-10.

So, the question here is, if I increase my consumption up to the number of recommended servings of fruits and vegetables, will I feel a difference?

Based on the end of the previous week’s experiment, I know what my weight is starting the experiment. I’m feeling run down and wiped out, so any changes in energy levels will be evident pretty quickly.

Eating your Recommended Fruits and Vegetable Servings – Day 1

My menu for today was pretty aggressive.

It starts with a smoothie: 1 banana, 1 cup of mixed berries, 1 cup of orange juice, and a handful of kale as well. I didn’t drink all of that today, but it contains 5 servings of fruit, and I drank at least 3/5 today. So, I start with 3 servings of fruits and vegetables.

Add in 2 cups of baked kale chips, so that’s 2 servings of vegetables.

Then I snacked on 2 sliced apples today, adding 2 more servings of fruit and bringing me to 7 servings of fruits and vegetables in total.

I also drank a cup of pomegranate and blueberry juice today, so that brings me to 9 servings.

Then, for dinner, I diced up a cup of spinach to put on the pizza I cooked.

Add in a healthy helping of spinach, and my total for the day is 9.5 servings of fruits and vegetables today.

So far, it’s a great start to an interesting experiment!