Fruit Bowl - Recipe Monday

This really is a no brainer. Fruit is good for you and how much you should eat depends on your age, sex, and level of physical activity. Fruit and veggies contain important vitamins and minerals and we all know that we should eat more fruits and veggies. But why exactly if you can pop a multivitamin in the morning? Well, a multivitamin does not provide you with fiber, does it? Nor will it make you feel full or satisfied, or does it? Do you really want to be munching on a highly processed fiber (and calorie) loaded granola bar? Not only do fruits and veggies add their nutritional value, but fruit (and certain veggies) can help relieve your sweet tooth and that's basically what we have been trying to do: We have been trying to replace servings of ice cream with a bowl of fruit.
I understand that for some people eating an apple as is seems kind of boring, I usually throw together a number of different fruits to keep it interesting.

My favorite fruit bowl at the moment uses the following and it really only takes 5 minutes to throw together (serves 2):

• 1 medium apple (with skin), cored and diced
• 1 mango, skinned and pitted, diced
• 1 peach, pitted and diced
• some walnuts/pecans/hazelnuts/almonds for decoration and extra crunch

I throw them all together and mix them up. If fruit alone is not sweet enough for you, drizzle over some maple syrup (the real stuff) or honey. It makes a great dessert, a wonderful snack, and it makes any breakfast look so much better.

Add whatever fruit you like. Maybe you don't like apples, but love pears. Try different combinations such as mango, banana, strawberry or grapes, oranges, pears. Try different kinds of melon with a few raspberries thrown into the mix. Make it colorful and make it your own.

You might say, fruit is too expensive. And yes, some fruits are very expensive. I have a tip for you: Buy fruit that is in season. I don't buy strawberries in winter because they are ridiculously expensive. There are so many types of apples, some more expensive than others. I really like Red Delicious and they are often on sale at my grocery store. Bananas are usually fairly cheap and they make a great addition to any fruit bowl...

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If you want to find out more about why fruit/veggies are important check out the CDC's website on fruits and veggies. They also provide a fruit and veggie calculator to help you determine how many servings of fruits and veggies would be ideal for you. For me they recommended 1.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables a day (based on a 1800 calorie diet), while the husband should get 2 cups fruit and 3 cups veggies a day (based on a 2400 calorie diet). They also provide a great guide as to what constitutes a cup of fruit/veggies.