Cutting Costs for Heart Healthy Benefits

According to a recent article in DOC News, a publication of the ADA, increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables lowers your risk of strokes. Eating 3-5 cups a day has long been recommended by the USDA's My Pyramid Program, to reduce the risks of heart disease, high blood pressure, and developing Type 2 diabetes. The health benefits are well documented, but sometimes getting a variety of fruits and vegetables into your diet can be expensive.

• USDA My Pyramid Program
• More Fruits and Vegetables Equal Lower Risk, Less Weight

It's a fact. Eating healthy can cost more at the grocery store. But there are ways to add more produce into your diet without breaking the bank. Most grocery stores feature sale items weekly. Study the sale flyers and only buy what is on sale that week. Shopping this way automatically gives you variety in your fruits and veggies because the sales change every week. One week, apples and green beans may be on sale, the next week, peaches and green peppers.

Use frozen vegetables and fruits. Usually the store brand of these items are cheaper, and again, stores run sales all the time. Stock your freezer when your favorite items go on sale. Adding frozen vegetables to soups, stews, casseroles and pasta dishes is a good way to increase your intake, too. Vegetables like frozen spinach can be added to many recipes to give you more heart healthy benefits. Onions and cabbage are vegetables, too, and they're usually reasonably priced. If you like them, add them to everything.

Freezing bananas when they're on sale gives you a good supply for making healthy fruit smoothies. Simply toss a frozen banana into the blender with the rest of the ingredients. Baking with applesauce is another economical way to add fruit to your life. Substituting unsweetened applesauce for fat in your recipes not only helps you increase your fruit servings, but also cuts your consumption of fat. It's a double whammy of good health.

• Top Risk Factors For Diabetes
• Eat a Green Thing
• Recipe for Pretty Pasta - It's Bursting with Veggies!

Photo By Margan Zajdowicz