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8.16.2012

30 broccoli florets?!

That's how much broccoli I need every day to meet the CDC's (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) daily recommended vegetable intake.  For me personally, they recommend I eat 2 cups of fruit and 3 cups of vegetables a day.  Or 30 broccoli heads and 2 large oranges.  Or 3 ears of corn and 64 grapes.  You get the point--that's a lot of fruit and vegetables.  Especially for someone who used to claim, "I just don't like vegetables, so I don't eat them.  Any of them."
You can put in your age, sex, and amount of physical activity by clicking here to find out what is recommended for you. 
So why does this matter? Who cares if we meet our daily recommended intake?!
Well, many studies, including this one done by Harvard School of Public Health, have proven that eating fruits and vegetables will lower your blood pressure, reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer...the list goes on and on! This sounds amazing--but the first downfall is that I have to eat 30 broccoli florets every day to get these benefits!! 
Another downfall is that most of the fruits and vegetables we buy from the grocery store are covered in pesticides.  Pesticides are toxic and have been linked (by U.S. and international government agencies) to brain and nervous system toxicity, cancer, hormone disruption, skin, eye, and lung irritation.....so you mean that my horribly dry and itchy skin can be related to pesticides?!  Crazy, right?
Well don't you fret, because the EWG (Environmental Working Group) recommends that while you should strive to always buy all fruits and vegetables organic to avoid pesticides completely, it is still always better to eat non-organic fruits/vegetables than processed junk food.  And it's better to eat them non-organic than to not eat them at all.  So to help us all out, they came out with the  'dirty dozen' and 'clean 15', and wouldn't you know, an apple a day might keep the doctor away, or it might not if it is not organic because 98% of apples are covered in pesticides.
Oh, and what about the '30 broccoli florets a day' downfall?  Well that's where this handy dandy juicer comes in that I just got and am super excited about!! I am new to the 'juicing' world, but have been learning about the benefits of juicing for quite some time now.
After opening it, I immediately had to try some juice--so I pulled every fruit and vegetable out of our fridge--carrots, celery, grapes, apples, blueberries, and part of a lemon.  And voila!! It was amazing, cancer fighting juice!!

If you have a juicer, what are some of your favorite combinations??

2 comments:

  1. 2 oranges a day ! That's eaaaasy. and 64 grapes pssh. Lol thankfully they're one of my favorite fruits! but I don't know about those vegetables. ;p

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  2. Haha I thought of you when I was writing that!!

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