The USDA Recommends Nine Fruits and Veggies a Day

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has raised the dietary guidelines for fruit and vegetable consumption from five, then seven, and now nine servings per day.

Following are a few quick reasons why we need this many daily servings for good health:

- Six of the ten leading causes of disease - heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes, hardening of the arteries, and scarring of the liver - can be traced to unhealthy nutritional habits.

- A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), using thirty-six years of data, concluded that people who did not get enough nutrition were at an increased risk of disease, including heart disease and cancer.

- Obesity is on the rise in the United States, including 73 percent of adults.

- According to recent studies, seven out of ten people will die of heart disease, cancer or stroke.

- Due to modern farming techniques, much of our soil is depleted of essential nutrients. Farmers now fertilize the soil with a limited number of nutrients - mainly nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. This grows nice, big crops - but the plants don't have enough nutrients.

- According to the 1992 Earth Summit, North America has the worst soil in the world. Eighty-five percent of nutrients have been depleted from it.

- U.S. Senate issued Document 246, which says the soil in the U.S. no longer provides plant foods with enough minerals needed for human nourishment.

- Crops are often harvested before they're ripe and stored for long periods of time. For example, 80 percent of the nutrition in tomatoes comes from the last two weeks on the vine. Yet it is harvested well before that time.

Mineral Content

- Comparing the USDA handbook of 1972 to the USDA food tables of today show dramatic reductions in nutrient content. For example:

• An apple has 20 percent the nutrition of an apple fifty years ago.

• Half the calcium in broccoli has disappeared

• Half the vitamin A in collared greens is gone

• Calcium in pineapple went from 17 mg to 7 mg

These astonishing losses in nutrients eventually have a significant impact on your health.

- Cooking at over 120 degrees kills a significant amount of nutrition in many foods

- Harm is done in order to give produce longer shelf life, better taste and a healthy appearance.

These are a few quick reasons why the USDA has raised the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables to nine per day for good health.

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