There's never been any shortage of reasons to eat fruit and vegetables, as your grandmother or a nutritionist will remind you.
But in recent times, study after study is discovering that a diet high in fruit and vegetables is our secret weapon in the fight against such health problems as high blood pressure, heart attack, osteoporosis and even cancer.
And how high is high? At least two pieces of fruit such as pears a day plus five serves of vegetables or salad is suggested, but ideally more if you want to have a dramatic effect on your health.
Take hypertension or high blood pressure for instance. Cutting out salt and shedding excess poundage still remain important treatment modes. But an eating plan called the DASH Diet, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, has had remarkable success in dropping high blood pressure, as outlined in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997. This dietary alternative is rich in fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy but low in saturated fat. It's not vegetarian, but includes four to five fruits or juice over the day with lots of raw and cooked vegetables.
Heart disease too responds to a trip to the fresh product markets, as these are the main sources of antioxidants. All contribute some but berries, kiwi fruit, grapes, dark-green leafy veges and members of the cabbage family stand out above the rest. The trick is to go for lots of colour on your plate - orange, yellow, green, red and white so you get the full range of all antioxidants which can fight off nasty free radicals
In addition, that fruit and vegetables are one of the best sources of fibre and folate, a B vitamin which can not only prevent birth defects but also lower a blood component called homocysteine. A high level of homocysteine is now recognised as a risk factor for heart disease in the same way as cholesterol.
Finally the USDA Nutrition Centre on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, USA, has reported that fruit and vegetables, with their rich content of potassium and magnesium, can keep the minerals "stored safely" inside our bones and so prevent osteoporosis in older men and women.
As well as calcium, the researchers found that eating plenty of fruit and vegetables created an alkaline environment in the body. This, they believe, has a buffering effect which "counteracts" the acid load from other foods. If we don't eat enough fruit and vegetables, the buffer has to come from minerals stored in bone, which over the years gradually depletes the bones of their strength. Pears along with bananas, apples, rockmelon and oranges, were among the twenty major contributors to potassium and magnesium intake in this population.
Catherine Saxelby is a nutritionist and author of Nutrition for Life. Get more healthy eating tips at www.foodwatch.com.au