Eat Fruit and Vegetables 🥦

Eating fruit and vegetables means making them a regular part of every meal, gradually working up to about five servings a day. A serving can be a piece of fruit, a handful of berries, a side salad, or a portion of cooked vegetables.

Start small: add one fruit or vegetable to one meal a day, then build from there. Keeping fruit visible on the counter, adding vegetables to dishes you already enjoy, and trying new varieties can make the habit easier to keep.

The evidence for long-term benefits is substantial. A meta-analysis of 38 prospective cohort studies with nearly 1.5 million participants found that higher fruit and vegetable intake was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, with the lowest risk around 800 g per day (Zhan et al., 2015).

Studies suggest benefits for blood pressure and metabolism too: meta-analyses found higher consumption was associated with lower risk of hypertension (Li et al., 2016) and metabolic syndrome (Tian et al., 2017), though the authors note more prospective research is needed.

There is also evidence for the brain. A meta-analysis linked higher intake to a reduced risk of cognitive impairment and dementia (Jiang et al., 2017), and a review of randomized trials found improvements in memory and attention (Khor et al., 2024).