Choose a Diet with Plenty of Vegetables, Fruits, and Grain Products

This guideline recommends that adults eat at least three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruits daily. It recommends at least six servings of grain products, such as breads, cereals, pasta, and rice, with an emphasis on whole grains.(What to count as a serving...) Children should also be encouraged to eat plenty of these foods.

Vegetables, fruits, and grain products are important parts of the varied diet discussed in the first guideline. They are emphasized in this guideline especially for their complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, and other food components linked to good health.

These foods are generally low in fats. By choosing the suggested amounts of them, you are likely to increase carbohydrates and decrease fats in your diet, as health authorities suggest. You will also get more dietary fiber.

Complex carbohydrates, such as starches, are in breads, cereals, pasta, rice, dry beans and peas, and other vegetables, such as potatoes and corn. Dietary fiber -- a part of plant foods -- is in whole-grain breads and cereals, dry beans and peas, vegetables, and fruits. It is best to eat a variety of these fiber-rich foods because they differ in the kinds of fiber they contain.

Eating foods with fiber is important for proper bowel function and can reduce symptoms of chronic constipation, diverticular disease, and hemorrhoids. Populations like ours with diets low in dietary fiber and complex carbohydrates and high in fat, especially saturated fat, tend to have more heart disease, obesity, and some cancers. Just how dietary fiber is involved is not yet clear.

Some of the benefit from a higher fiber diet may be from the food that provides the fiber, not from fiber alone. For this reason, it's best to get fiber from foods rather than from supplements. In addition, excessive use of fiber supplements is associated with greater risk for intestinal problems and lower absorption of some minerals,

Advice for today: Eat more vegetables, including dry beans and peas; fruits; and breads, cereals, pasta, and rice. Increase your fiber intake by eating more of a variety of foods that contain fiber naturally.

Three or more servings of various vegetables. (Count as a serving: 1 cup of raw leafy greens, 1/2 cup of other kinds)

• Have dark-green leafy and deep-yellow vegetables often.
• Eat dry beans and peas often. (Count 1/2 cup of cooked dry beans or peas as a serving of vegetables or as 1 ounce of the meat group.)
• Also eat starchy vegetables, such as potatoes and corn.

• Have citrus fruits or juices, melons, or berries regularly.
• Choose fruits as desserts and fruit juices as beverages.

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