Strive for Five

Introducing my Strive for 5 initiative!! A list of simple 5-based guidelines to help you live a healthier life. I hope this helps you remember how eat less processed food, and get enough of the good stuff on your plate each day!

A little background on how it came to be...The other day, I was working on some marketing material for a show I'm doing this week. Thinking about signs and advertisement, and how to draw people in.  I decided to focus on the real food movement this time, as it's January, and so many people are thinking about goals and diets and eating healthier. 

I came up with the idea of doing a raffle drawing for a few Real Food items that you can find in your mainstream grocery store. I was creating the sign for display and I typed "Strive for 5 ingredients or less on your packaged food".  Strive for 5-- cute! Then it hit me, there are many other things that come in 5's when it comes to being healthy.

STRIVE FOR 5 (the details)

5 Ingredients or less in packaged foods. I originally started eating less processed foods by following a plan called “100 Day of Real Food”. It starts with a 10 day challenge of and becomes a lifestyle choice. Start looking at your nutrition labels, not just for the fat and calorie content, but for the ingredients list as well. Strive to find foods that have 5 or less ingredients listed. Less ingredients is better, but be realistic too-- Condiments are tough! I choose to just use them minimally!

5 Cups of Vegetables and Fruits. To be clear, this is 5 cups of vegetables and fruits combined. This is the USDA recommendation. What counts as a cup? Without being too exact, 1 Cup of 100% juice, ½ Cup dried fruit, 1 average size hand fruit (apple, orange, grapefruit, banana, etc), 1 C chopped raw or cooked vegetables, or 2 cups of leafy greens

5 Ounces of whole grains.  It might be hard to think of grains in this “Ounce” proportion. Here are some common equivalents; 1 small biscuit, ½ cup uncooked oatmeal, 1 4-inch pancake, 3 cups popped popcorn, 1 C cold cereal, ½ C cooked rice or pasta, or 1 small (6 inch) tortilla. While I’d like to see you eat as many whole grains as possible the message of the USDA is “Make half of your grains whole”.

5 Ounces of Protein. Protein is important for building muscles and keeping you feeling full. Per the USDA: “In general, 1 ounce of meat, poultry or fish, ¼ cup cooked beans, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of peanut butter, or ½ ounce of nuts or seeds can be considered as 1 ounce equivalent from the Protein Foods Group.”

5 Teaspoons or less of oils. Oils are not a food group, but they do provide essential nutrients. Use oils sparingly in cooking, and try to get healthy oils from nuts, olives, fish and avocados!

5 One-half cups of dairy. Ok, so the real recommendation is 3 cups per day, but I had to make it fit into my rule of 5! Choose low-fat dairy as much as possible. There are 5 categories of Dairy: Milk, Yogurt, Cheese, Milk-based desserts, and Soymilk. Assume 1 cup of food = 1 cup of Dairy, with the exception of cheese, which can be considerably more or less depending on variety. Check the USDA (myplate.gov) website for clarification on all of these food amount recommendations.

5 Hours of Exercise! Get Active! This doesn’t mean you have to run for an hour 5 days a week! But get out there and walk, play with your kids, or actually hit the gym for 45 minutes every day!

This about sums it up. I'm pretty excited about this whole thing!!