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