Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Eat more FRESH Produce! Find out Why

I love fresh produce!  Every day I find new and fun way to prepare.  I'll admit, we eat more cooked than raw but that's about to change!

From Farm Flavor:

Did you know the average American eats only one to two servings of vegetables per day, around five times below the recommended amount? To maintain proper health, men should eat up to nine servings per day, while women are encouraged to have at least seven daily servings. And it’s the veggie’s unique phytochemicals that promote our good health.
  1. More Servings, More Benefits
    Eating fresh fruits and vegetables every day is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Research continues to show that many essential nutrients in fresh produce may protect you from cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, and they also give you more energy, help reduce weight gain and may even reduce the effects of aging.
  2.  Mighty Phytochemicals
    Phytochemicals are powerful food factors that elicit profound effects on human health maintenance and disease prevention. Usually related to plant pigments, they are the reason we promote eating your colors. Yellow, orange, red, green and purple fruits and vegetables generally contain the most phytochemicals, with more than 900 found in plant foods.
  3. Keep It Crunchy
    Once you cook produce, you quickly lose the beneficial qualities. If you want to cook your veggies lightly sauté or steam them – you want to keep them crispy and crunchy. Once veggies lose their crunch, they have also lost their nutritional value.
  4. Growing Inspires Eating
    Gardening not only provides you with fresh fruits and vegetables, it also encourages you to eat them. Once you are blessed with a bushel basket of tomatoes, you will have newfound interest in finding recipes for tomatoes. What’s more, picking fresh produce from your garden is a great way to get children to eat fruits and vegetables. It is fun for them to pick their own lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers – and then eat them.
Dr. Sue Hamilton, director of the UT Gardens, writes the gardening column for Tennessee Home & Farm.

Health and Gardening


Not sure how to get started?  Need a bit of guidance? 
Marianne is hosting an Edible Gardening Workshop in our office
Thursday, March 13th at 6pm
2104 Tyler Street
Hollywood, FL 33020
This event is FREE.  Space is limited so please give us a call or send an email if you are interested in attending.
 
Organic Serrano peppers and Basil

5 comments:

  1. I can't wait to start my garden this spring

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  2. Great post. So glad that more and more people are learning about GMOs and jumping on the band wagon

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    1. Thank you for stopping by Shantalle! I have to say though that this is much more than "jumping on the bandwagon." We have been very active in educating people about GMOs for a long time. My husband and I started Mary's Heirloom Seeds about 3 years ago to offer a trusted source of heirloom, Non-GMO seeds. Being ACTIVE is more important than just saying "no GMOs."

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  3. This is great information! I think a lot of people are so accustomed to processed food that they forget how deliciously simple a fresh veggie can be!

    Stopping by from the Real Food Friday link up. :)

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  4. My son wants to grow a garden this year so I hope heathier eating will be an outcome of our garden. Thanks for sharing at Inspire Us Thursday on Organized 31.

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Have an awesome day!
-Mary