A variety of vegetables and fruits is an important part of a healthy diet. A diet rich in them can lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, prevent certain types of cancer, eye and digestive diseases, and have a positive effect on blood sugar levels. Eating green leafy vegetables, apples, and pears can help you lose weight. Russian nutritionist Candidate of Chemical Sciences Anastasia Shalyapina has prepared recommendations on choosing vegetables and fruits specifically for the sb.by portal.
1. Pay attention to color
Color allows you to assess the ripeness and freshness of the product. Vibrant colors indicate that a vegetable or fruit is full of phytonutrients, each with a unique set of nutrients.
2. Connect your senses of smell and touch
Pay attention to how the vegetable or fruit smells and feels. A firm vegetable with no soft spots is more likely to be fresh. Fragrant fruits are often tastier. Ripe fruits, with the exception of apples, should give slightly when squeezed. At room temperature, pears, bananas and avocados continue to ripen and become softer.
3. Walk past bruised or damaged food.
This is an ideal environment for bacteria, which can quickly spread throughout fruits or vegetables. In addition, spoiled foods are less nutritious and, frankly, often unpleasant to eat.
4. Try to buy vegetables and fruits depending on the season
Not all types of fresh produce are available all year round. Selling certain fruits and vegetables out of season incurs significant transportation costs for retailers. The costs are passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. Therefore, it is better to buy seasonal fruits and vegetables – they are of higher quality and less expensive.
5. Don’t overpay for packaged foods.
If you don’t want to overpay, compare prices for packaged and bulk products. Compared to pre-packaged options, purchasing individual items is often more cost-effective, and you can choose higher quality fruits and vegetables.
6. Don’t ignore lonely bananas
Most shoppers prefer to grab a bunch of bananas, while some tear off a couple to eat on the go or take as a snack. As a result, there are a lot of single bananas left in the box, which for some reason no one wants to take, but they are no worse. If it is important to you to take care of the environment, do not ignore single bananas, because most often such products are left behind, spoiled, and then simply thrown away.
Don’t forget that WHO recommends including at least 400 grams of vegetables and fruits per day in a healthy diet. Anastasia Shalyapina will talk about what will help fulfill this standard next time.
We previously wrote about how to choose the right fish and seafood.
2024-01-30 20:05:34
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