Unlike a tan, you can’t fake a good diet

September 12, 2006 – 11:21 pm

by Rigel

You can’t pretend your way through eating healthy food- cheating will catch up with you eventually by showing up in your thighs, on your bum, even in the way your skin looks. But that being said, MSNBC gives us some hints on how to incorporate healthy vegetables into our everyday diet. Honestly vegetables can be hard to come by these days- especially in their natural unprocessed state (I don’t think that the freeze-dried carrot shred and reconstituted corn kernel in my Ramen Cup count). Ideas like throwing some veggies on your next pizza, incorporating different “colors” into your diet, and even having zucchini bread and pumpkin pie can help a little. One step at a time- nobody’s saying it’s ideal to eat half a greasy pizza with pie for dessert, but if a serving or two of veggies snuck in there then at least it’s a start! The point is that you’ve got to start somewhere- where ever that somewhere might be.

Dr Connie Guttersen, a dietician and author, warns against the over-use of vitamin supplements as a replacement for eating vegetables. Although they can be beneficial as supplements to a balanced diet, she warns “Scientific evidence shows that the protective nutrients found in vegetables work in harmony to improve health, rather than alone, as in supplements,” she says. “So, you’re not getting the same benefits.”

Well I’m just excited that a piece of pumpkin pie counts a serving of squash! Do you think the whipped topping counts as dairy? Okay, that might be pushing it.