Fruit and Vegetable Diet Plan

In this busy lifestyle, we have become highly dependent on unhealthy junk food and seem to have forgotten the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. A fruit vegetable diet is very effective when it comes to a healthy life. Read on to know more about fruit and vegetable diet plan, an important aspect of a balanced diet.

The first thing that comes to mind when we hear the term 'fruit and vegetable diet' is a vegan type of diet, which includes various types of fruits and vegetables, most often eaten raw, and totally excludes meat. But this is a myth when it comes to fruit and vegetable diet plans. The meat exclusion part of the diet plan makes many faces frown and its not surprising as meat tastes better than plants. Excluding meat from the diet is not a wise thing to do, more importantly because it fulfills the protein requirements of our body, but at the same time one should also understand that fruits and vegetables provide us with various vitamins and nutrients required by our body for healthy functioning, and thus should not be ignored.

Fruit Vegetable Diet Ingredients
Fruits do contain fructose, a sugar which is easily converted to body fat, but the benefits of eating fruits are much more than the disadvantages. The fructose content is high in some fruits but moderate in others. Vegetables have two main advantages over fruits: firstly they contain complex carbohydrates which cannot be easily converted to fats and secondly they are low in calories. But this doesn't mean that fruits are not important in the diet. A balanced diet should contain vegetables as well as fruits. Fruits such as apples, oranges, pears, strawberries, blueberries, papaya, cantaloupe, guava and blackberries contain fairly less amount of sugar and hence are ideal fruit vegetable diet ingredients. In fact green apples have the least amount of sugars in them. On the other hand, fruits like bananas and grapes should be consumed in less amounts or are best avoided owing to their high fructose content. Some important vegetables, such as cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, lettuce, tomato, spinach, eggplants, collard greens, alfalfa sprouts and Brussels sprouts need to be compulsorily incorporated in your fruit and vegetable diet plan.

Fruit and Vegetable Diet Plan
In order to live a healthy life and for successful weight loss, a person is recommended to have at least nine servings of fruits and vegetables in a day. An ideal breakup would be four fruit servings and five vegetable servings a day. To make sure one is not overeating, the servings should be small and frequent rather than large and few. This will ensure that you are full throughout the day and also help you to stay away from unhealthy and unhygienic fast food. Cooking is also an important aspect of your fruit and vegetable diet plan. Raw foods are high on nutrients and if at all you want to cook them before eating, baking or steaming them is much wiser than boiling them as boiling tends to lower their nutritional value. Another important thing to be kept in mind is that the fiber content in a whole fruit makes it more nutritional than the fruit juice. It's ideal to include fruits or fruit juices in your breakfast in the early morning. Halfway between your breakfast and lunch you can either eat some fruits or sip another glass of low-sugar (sugarless) fruit juice. Lunch should include a variety of vegetables, either raw or steamed. Boiling and deep frying will make your healthy fruit vegetable diet unhealthy. A fruit or vegetable salad can be an ideal evening snack, followed by dinner consisting of easy to digest food. More importantly your last serving should go in at least an hour or two before you go to bed.

Initially, getting used to a vegetarian diet will be a bit tough, especially if meat is the most important component of your diet but slowly you will get used to this healthy diet regime. A balanced diet is the key to success and this balanced diet should include all the nutritional fruits and vegetables. Good fruit and vegetable diet plans have many health benefits. It reduces the risk of various cancers and heart diseases. Eating fruits and vegetables will make you feel full and you won't have to depend on unhygienic fast food which is the biggest threat to your health. Remember that the only success formula for a healthy and long life is a balanced diet, and balanced diet is not possible without fruits and vegetables.