A Year of Fruits and Veggies will bring you information once monthly for twelve months to celebrate the seasons, provide inspiration and insight about produce, and help you choose to eat more fruits and veggies. A Year of Fruits and Veggies is a project of Healthy North Dakota to provide a tool to help employers invest in the health of their businesses and their employees.

People who eat more generous amounts of fruits and veggies as part of a healthful diet are likely to have reduced risk of chronic diseases like stroke, diseases of the heart, and certain cancers.

The goal of A Year of Fruits and Veggies is to help participants increase fruit and vegetable intake. This will happen by providing  information on choosing fruits and vegetables, cooking methods, recipes, and health benefits.  Another objective of the program is to increase access to North Dakota-grown fruits and vegetables by increasing awareness of farmers markets, Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), community gardens, and growing your own fruits & veggies.

So that it can be shown that this project is useful to you and is helping people choose to eat more fruits and vegetables, we will ask you to complete a brief survey at the beginning as you start, once in the middle of the year, and once at the end of the year. Your answers will be collected only in a group basis, and will not be able to be tracked individually or by business.

Please take a few minutes now to complete the pre-survey (only 7 questions) found at

 A Year of Fruits & Veggies “Before You Start” Survey

How many servings do I eat? Almost everyone needs to eat more fruits and vegetables!  Newer recommendations for amounts of fruits and vegetables to eat daily are personalized, based on your age, gender and activity level. Visit Fruits & Veggies Matter to find your personal level with the calculator at the top of the page:

                http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/

Once you know how much to eat for your good health, picture what a cup of fruits & veggies look like. Look here for examples:

                http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/what/index.html

Think for a moment about how many fruits and veggies you currently eat. And think of some ways to slip more into meals and snacks. For example,

• Slice some fruit on your breakfast cereal

• Bring some to work; a piece of fruit such as an apple or orange is a great morning snack

• Add extra vegetables to your noon sandwich

• Start your dinner with a broth-based vegetable soup – low in calories, people who do this help manage their weight.

Read how North Dakotans are finding ways to add more fruits & veggies to their day:

                http://www.healthynd.org/publications/FruitsVeggiesTips.pdf