How many pieces of fruit should I eat in a day?

The answer actually depends on your height, weight, and physical activity level, but for a relative comparison I'll say I aim for 2-3.

It's doable. I bring food to work all the time and leave it on my desk. I figure I'm a dietitian so it's not weird to have a grapefruit, an apple, some rice crackers and nuts and seeds for all to see. And if it's anywhere between 11am and 3 you're apt to see some cottage cheese as well.

But no matter, the point is it's doable. Grab a banana on the way out the door. If you're not a breakfast eater, comfort yourself in knowing that eventually you'll eat and when you do get those first grumbles in the belly, tada!, you have a banana. It's no meal, but it'll tide you over until you have one. One fruit down.

You can also keep a bowl of grapes out at home (preferably organic as we eat the skin). When you walk by, take a few. A half a cup of grapes (or berries, or other cut-up fruit) is considered "one fruit." Before you know it, two fruits down.

And maybe you don't like the bulk of whole fruit. It's just not convenient to carry around. Fair enough. Enter dried fruit. Hello raisins. Hello prunes (gross). Hello dried cranberries, apple, pear, mango, and papaya, to name a few. How are you? Thanks for the nourishment. A quarter cup and done, three fruits down.

Challenge yourself. Make a goal of eating one piece of fruit a day if you don't already do so. If you do, make it two.

Grocery Shopping: Nutrition Facts and Ingredients List Tips

I haven't written anything in weeks because nothing had struck me, and I'm the type that needs something to hit me in the face before I'm motivated enough to act. (It's not my favorite quality.) This topic hit me in the face.

It seems many are overwhelmed when faced with the dreaded "Nutrition Facts" and "Ingredients" list on a food's package, so I've gathered some tips that I hope you keep in mind when grocery shopping and even eating. I may expand on this as time continues.

1. When reading a food's Nutrition Facts label, first look at its Serving Size. It's found at the top of the label and the label is based on this amount. It's important to visualize what this amount looks like. If you're unsure, count or measure 1 serving size when you get home. Be mindful of the number of servings you eat in one sitting.

2. The percentages (%) going down on the right side of the Nutrition Facts label are based on a 2000-calorie diet. If you typically eat fewer than 2000 calories (more common in women), slightly increase the percentages. If you typically eat more than 2000 calories (more common in men), slightly decrease the percentages. This relates it to you.

3. Aim for the %Saturated Fat to be less than 10.

4. If the Trans Fat reads more than 0g, it's best to put the food back on the shelf. If the Ingredients list includes "partially hydrogenated _______," it's best to at least consider putting the food back on the shelf.

5. Aim for the Dietary Fiber to be at least 3g when eating a grain-based carbohydrate. Two is okay too. It's not as good as three, but it's better than one.

6. The fewer the ingredients, the better.

7. If the first ingredient is flour, aim for "whole wheat flour" or "100% whole wheat flour." Everything else ("unbleached," "enriched," "multigrain," "wheat flour") is either not a whole grain, a marketing ploy, or both.

8. If you look at the very last ingredient on the Ingredients list and see it's something you can easily pick up in the grocery store, the food is more likely a good choice.

Eat Healthy Food Too

It’s common for people to choose “junk food” because they feel they don’t like “healthy food.” To this I have two things to say. Number one, you’re ignorant to the breadth of “healthy food,” and number two, and as one of my professors so famously remarked, “what’s made you think everything you eat has to be a ‘10’ in taste?”

Oh Dichotomies... and Healthcare Costs

It's just such an interesting dichotomy. Human nature loves to eat, and we do it well, yet our culture supports the belief that slim and fit are the most beautiful. This is an issue; we're not biologically designed to have it both ways. As the obesity epidemic (and rising healthcare costs) has shown we cannot overeat and maintain, “slim and fit.” Truly, unless we're getting an unusual amount of physical activity we simply do not give off enough heat (the body's way of releasing energy, a.k.a. food) to compensate for eating unusually large quantities of food, which we do.

But how can anyone expect we not eat unusually large quantities of food? Large portions are easy to come by, equally (if not more) delicious as any other-sized portion, and cheap. And let's not fail to point out the obvious - we are biologically designed to like it.

So here’s what we must do, exercise self-discipline. And we must, because we’re designed to enjoy food and consequently cannot control our life-long desire for it. Therefore, we must shift focus towards what we can control, our intake. And here’s why: if we exercise self-discipline and choose healthful foods, we will inevitably decrease our intake of less healthful foods. Over time this shift will lead to several things. People will begin to slim down, and this will slowly decrease the long-term healthcare costs. This shift will also decrease profits for the food manufactures of said "less healthful foods," and that will ultimately result in less production of these foods.

The larger idea is supply and demand and in this case we must exercise self-discipline and keep the demand down. If we do not, healthcare costs will continue to rise (due to our increasing size) and all the while we potentially maintain the ideal “slim and fit.” And that would be such an interesting dichotomy.

Food's Irony

Food is vital to life, yet so many die because of the food they've eaten.

"Bodacious BBQs"

So I’m watching “15 Bodacious BBQs” on the Finer Living Network (FLN) and one of these 15 bodacious BBQs focuses on the 1lb burger. I’m not impressed. One pound is 16 ounces. One serving of meat is 1 ounce. That means this “bodacious” burger is 16 servings, and that’s not only nothing to be proud of (you enjoy encouraging the development of heart disease?), but it’s also gross. Sixteen servings of anything are far more than you need in one sitting. And when it comes to meat, you don’t need more than 4 ounces at one time.

Food for Thought

I’m starting a blog. It’s certainly not a novel idea, but it’s exciting for me.

I’m going to blog about food and nutrition. It’s my career and my passion and I have a lot to say, so here it goes.

They’ll be short entries, or so I envision, and mostly nothing more than anecdotal thoughts about this or that. I hope they’re fun and entertaining to read, and I hope they’re educational too!