You are sure to have heard of the importance of getting your five-a-day. We are talking, of course, about including a minimum of five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet on a daily basis. It’s something that is recommended by nutritionists the world over and is recommended by the WHO and underpinned by the NHS. Why? Because it significantly improves your health and well-being.

Fresh fruits are a fantastic source of vitamins and minerals. They are also a great source of fibre, and this plays a crucial role in your health and wellness. Fibre contributes towards helping you to maintain a healthy gut. This will assist with keeping constipation and digestive problems at bay. It will also help you to keep your bowel movements regular.

It’s not just a flight of fancy

Food science also reveals that fresh fruit (and vegetables too, of course) can lower your risk of developing heart disease and being susceptible to strokes. It can even reportedly help towards preventing some types of cancer.

It’s not just fresh fruit that counts. Tinned and frozen are helpful too. But the level of natural vitamins and minerals present in unprocessed fresh fruit is higher than the tinned or frozen options.

You may not be aware, but eating a variety is important. It’s because the combinations of nutrients fresh fruit contains varies from fruit to fruit. So, to get the maximum benefit from your fruits, you should choose them from all of the different colour groups. These include green, orange, red, purple and yellow.

If you would like to know the nutritional value of each fruit in detail, check out the list on the health-alternatives .com website. Just let your cursor hover over your fruit selection and click the mouse button.

Going out to work can interfere with five-a-day

Because most men and women go out to work, it makes it more difficult for them to get their full five-a-day. But many offices here in the UK now provide their staff with fresh fruit daily in the workplace. It not only helps to keep their workforce healthy; it also contributes to workers’ well-being too.

Offices are not the healthiest of places. Anything that can be done to improve the environment can help. Ergonomically designed chairs and furniture and providing workers with stand-up work-stations are good examples.  But what about stress?

Lowering stress in the workplace

A study of the ability of fresh fruit to lower levels of stress and anxiety was recently undertaken in Australia. A summary can be found on the netdoctor.co.uk website.

The survey program took into account the diets of 60,000 Australians aged 45 or over. The research concluded that when people ate 3 to 4 portions of fresh fruits and vegetables per day, instead of merely one, their psychological stress levels came down by a significant 12%. When portion sizes were increased to between five and seven, stress levels fell by 14%.

As well as promoting the health and well-being of staff, providing office workers with fresh fruit in the workplace on a daily basis also increases staff loyalty. This because the presence of the fruit serves as a visual reminder that the company takes its workers’ health seriously

If you would like to find out more about how you can take part in this program, visit the Fruitful Office website.

James Montano