Frozen fruit and vegetables - the other fast food

The government is stepping up the campaign to get Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables:

To promote new dietary guidelines issued last year, U.S. health officials and the produce industry are ditching the familiar "5 A Day" slogan, which urged Americans to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and which had been plastered on everything from baskets of strawberries to pencils handed out in schools. Beginning in March, a new message will be unveiled: "Fruits and Veggies -- More Matters."

The guidelines, which were accompanied by the revamping of the government's food pyramid, include specific amounts of produce, measured in cups, rather than the old, vaguer "servings." And they vary by age, sex and level of activity for everyone over the age of two. A 40-year-old woman, for instance, should eat 2.5 cups of vegetables and 1.5 cups of fruit daily if she exercises less than 30 minutes a day -- more if she is more active.

The article, from the Wall Street Journal, goes on to saythat 90% of Americans fall short of the recommended fruit and vegetable consumption.

I actually get pretty close to the recommendation. My secret:  I eat a lot of frozen fruit and vegetables. This tends to surprise people who know me as a foodie. In fact, I include frozen berries for breakfast and frozen vegetables for my (brown-bag) lunch almost every day. And in a pinch (like tonight) I'll use frozen vegetables at dinner. I got on to this after reading What Color is Your Diet? Frozen vegetables are often higher in nutrition than fresh, which may have been shipped long distances, losing quality in the process.

For me, frozen fruits and vegetables to me are the perfect fall-back when pressed for time. The alternative is going out - a muffin or bagel for breakfast, a sandwich (or worse) for lunch, pizza for dinner. That's expensive and almost guaranteed not as nutritious. Vegetable stir-fries, vegetable burritos, a nice vegetable frittata -  these probably take less time to prepare (with frozen, pre-cut veggies) than fussing around with going out. For breakfast, I mix thawed frozen berries into yogurt.

Costo often has big bags of organic vegetables. We keep an eye out for these and stock up when they are available.

I always prefer local, in-season fruit and veggies to frozen, so we leverage fresh whenever possible. But our frozen stash always stands ready in a pinch.