Fruits and Veggies: Live Longer, Get Leaner, Perform Better
A Complete Evidence-Based Guide
Fruits and veggies played a pivotal role in my fitness transformation. In 2013, I read the book Born to Run. In it, Christopher McDougall suggests eating a salad for breakfast.
I was at the start of my fitness journey and eating a typical American diet. I was a bit overweight and feeling very unfit, so I decided to give breakfast salads a shot. The results shocked me. I felt a huge difference in a matter of weeks. I had more energy throughout the day, felt my mood improve, and lost some weight. The tangible progress was incredibly motivating.
Although I eventually ditched the salad for breakfast, I started eating piles of fruits and veggies at all my meals. I now like to say I’m 50% vegan. It isn’t sexy. It isn't always easy. But it works. No matter what your goals, eating plenty of fruits and veggies is pivotal. They can help you live longer, get leaner, perform better and even improve your mood.
So how much should you eat? Are all fruits and veggies equally healthy? Could going 100% vegan be even better? And what if you’re not a fan of vegetables? Can increasing your fruit and vegetable intake actually help you lose weight? If you have any of these questions, this article is for you. In it we’ll take an evidence-based deep dive into optimizing your fruit and veggie intake. Along the way I’ll bust a few internet myths and offer plenty of practical tips.
Here are links to each section.
This is a very deep dive intended to provide everything you need to optimize your fruit and veggie intake. I hope you’ll bookmark the page and return often as you master your diet.
The Wide-Ranging Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables
Carnivore and vegan zealots alike can make it hard to separate fact from fiction. This is irritating because it needlessly causes people to lose confidence in foundational diet guidelines. So I’m going to take the time to clarify the benefits of eating fruits and veggies. If you don’t like science or don’t care, please feel free to skip down to the next section where we explore just how much fruit and veggies you should eat. If, on the other hand, you love science, want to get motivated, and are ready to arm yourself against internet myths, here we go!
1. Fruits and Veggies are Absurdly Healthy
Indeed, the health benefits of fruits and vegetables are among the most well-established facts in nutritional science. How do we know? Well first, we have a TON of great observational data. For instance, a comprehensive 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis, which evaluated data from 95 studies, demonstrated that consuming 800 grams of fruits and vegetables daily reduces the risk of all-cause mortality by 31%, heart disease by 24%, stroke by 33%, among other health benefits.
A common counterargument emphasizes the limitations of epidemiological studies, which can only show associations, not causation. Critics suggest that healthier lifestyles among fruit and vegetable eaters might skew the results. However, researchers are aware of these potential biases and account for them by adjusting for factors like exercise, smoking, and alcohol use in their analyses. Not to mention that the sheer volume and consistency of the data from these observational studies make the health benefits of fruits and vegetables hard to dismiss as mere coincidence.
Moreover, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), which can show causation, provide direct evidence of these benefits. For example, a 2021 RCTdemonstrated that increasing intake among older adults reduced inflammatory biomarkers, signaling improved health. Additionally, comprehensive reviews of RCTs in recent years have underscored the specific health benefits of consuming avocados and extra virgin olive oil among other plant-based foods.
In essence, the evidence supporting the health advantages of consuming fruits and vegetables is both robust and compelling, making it a cornerstone of a healthy diet. Take note that to maximize the health and longevity benefits of fruits and veggies you want to consume 800 grams per day. When we turn the science into practice (see below), that finding will be important. Now, let’s explore the specific role of fiber, another crucial benefit of these nutritional powerhouses.
2. Unlocking the Health Benefits of Fiber
Fruits and vegetables are loaded with fiber—a carbohydrate exclusive to plant-based foods that our bodies cannot digest. Adopting a high-fiber diet can lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and blood pressure, improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control, and even extend lifespan. For instance, a meta-analysis of cohort studies has revealed that each 10-gram daily increase in fiber intake is associated with a 10% decrease in overall mortality risk. This significant finding is supported by data from 17 prospective studies, involving nearly one million participants. Once again, it’s unlikely to be mere coincidence.
Further substantiating the benefits of fiber, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) have demonstrated that high-fiber diets contribute to lower LDL cholesterol—a known factor in cardiovascular disease risk as identified in Mendelian randomization studies. Additionally, RCTs have shown that such diets improve glycemic control and potentially reduce the need for diabetes medication.
To harness the full health benefits of fiber, aim for 14 grams of fiber for every 1000 kcal you consume. Interestingly, incorporating 800 grams of fruits and vegetables into your daily diet typically provides about 30 grams of fiber, aligning with the recommended daily allowance for the average American, and ensuring you reap the extensive health benefits these foods offer.
Want to learn more about diet’s role in longevity? Check out my article, Is there a longevity diet?
Alright, we’ve covered the immense health and longevity benefits of fruits and veggies. But that’s not all! Let's now turn our attention to their role in sculpting a lean physique.
3. Sculpting a Leaner Physique with Fruits and Veggies
Fruits and veggies aren’t just absurdly healthy. They can help you get and stay lean. There are at least two ways this happens.
Fruits and veggies have a very low caloric density. On average there are only 500 kcal in 800 grams of fruits and veggies. This matters because your sense of fullness is largely controlled by food volume, so the more food you eat the fuller you feel. Now the average American eats 4-5 pounds of food per day. Simply substituting 1.7 pounds (800 grams) of that for fruit and veggies can significantly lower the energy in your diet, thereby helping you lose fat without going hungry. Here’s a concrete example. A single slice of cheese pizza is typically 285 calories. Conversely there’s only about 110 calories in an entire large head of lettuce. (Below I’ll show you how to put knowledge into practice.)
Healthy diets have unique ways of helping you get lean. There is more to the weight loss magic of fruits and veggies than just caloric density. For example, a recent RCT found that eating a diet with lots of berries and non-starchy veggies can improve the health of your microbiome (all the little critters running around your digestive tract) causing a loss of 56 calories in your feces daily. The participants experienced no increase in hunger or energy expenditure. Effectively their metabolism just sped up a touch in response to eating so healthy.
In yet another recent RCT, dieters ate a diet high in healthy fats, plants and fiber. After 12 weeks they’d lost 2.1 kilograms more than the control group. This was despite everyone eating the same number of calories. This was likely a result of changes in metabolism and the thermic effect of the diet.
56 calories per day and 2.1 kg over 12 weeks, probably doesn’t sound like much. But keep in mind that this is above and beyond the far more substantial calorie density benefit. Think of it as icing on the cake–a little bonus for eating a healthier diet. Next up, I’ll show you why fiber can be very physique friendly in its own right.
4. Fiber Fueled Weight Loss
While we've explored the vast health benefits of fiber, its role in achieving and maintaining a lean physique is equally impressive. Fiber takes a long time to leave your stomach. This delay leaves you feeling fuller for longer compared to a low fiber meal. Additionally, humans can’t digest fiber. We don’t get any energy from it. Thus, it helps us feel full without adding any energy to our diet.
How much of a difference does it make?
Well, according to a review of studies on fiber intake, increasing your fiber intake by 14 grams per day reduces your caloric intake by 10% and is associated with a loss of 1.9 kg over a 3.8 month period. This was ad libitum, meaning the participants were not actively trying to reduce their calories. They did it by accident as a result of a reduced appetite. For an average American male adding 14 grams of fiber per day could thus result in a reduction of 280 calories per day with no additional hunger.
If you’d like to dive deeper into hunger management check out my article, 10 ways to manage your hunger for year-round visible abs
Ultimately, adopting a diet rich in fruits and vegetables (aiming for 800 grams daily) is likely to help you lose fat in several different ways. It will dramatically lower the amount of energy in your diet without increasing hunger. It will increase your fiber intake, further reducing your appetite. And as a result of being so healthy, you may see modest increases in your metabolism and the thermic effect of your diet. But the advantages don’t stop here—let's explore a final benefit before we dive into practical advice.
5. Can Fruits and Veggies Make You Happy?
Remember when I said in the beginning that eating a salad every morning improved my mood? Well, I may not have been crazy. Based on the results of a recent study, eating plenty of fruits and veggies can make you happier. The study included 8,640 participants and found that higher consumptions of fruit and veggies reduced worries and tension while increasing joy.
How might this work?
Well it could be as simple as being healthy just feels good. But we also know that plants in general and fiber in particular are great for your microbiome, and science is increasingly discovering that your microbiome can have an impact on your mood and cognition. Ultimately, the health, longevity and physique benefits of fruits and veggies more than justify their consumption. But if it makes you happier too, all the better.
How Much Should You Eat?
If you’ve read this far, I trust you’re hyped for fruits and veggies. Let’s start with the good news. Fruit and veggie intake is dose-responsive, meaning that every little bit helps. If you don’t eat any fruits and veggies, adding just a little bit to your diet will help. Small improvements will produce modest results, but they will none-the-less help. And as you increase your intake, you’ll increase your results all the way up to around 800 grams per day at which point the health benefits seem to top out. Along the way, you’ll find it easier to get and stay lean, you’ll improve your health and longevity, and you’ll improve your athletic performance and recovery.
Of course, the question arises: given all of this is it best to go 100% vegan?
Probably not.
There are three main reasons for this.
If you followed along closely, you may have noticed that the health benefits of fruit and veggies seem to top out at around 800 grams per day. Now athletes probably benefit from even more fruits and veggies as they need more calories and nutrients to fuel their activities and recovery. Plants are loaded with phytochemicals and micronutrients, giving your body more of the building blocks it needs to perform optimally. But even then there’s an upper limit beyond which eating more fruits, veggies or fiber is no longer uniquely beneficial.
Getting enough protein and specifically all the right amino acids isn’t easy for vegans. Plant-based protein contains less of the essential amino acids your body needs, particularly leucine. Moreover, plant-based protein seems to be harder for humans to digest. Consequently, for optimal strength, muscle development and sport-related recovery, vegans often need to eat significantly more calories to hit their amino acid goals and need to closely monitor their amino acid intake which can be very taxing.
Just as plants have their own unique nutrients and chemicals, so too with animals. Eggs, meat, fish, dairy and poultry each offer unique nutrient profiles. Fish in particular are insanely healthy and loaded with marine omega 3’s.
If you’d like to learn more about protein, check out my article, Optimizing Protein Intake: Build Muscle, Lose Fat, Boost Recovery
Long story short, if you want to eat vegan for ethical or environmental reasons, that’s great. But it is unlikely to offer unique health benefits. And as of right now, the research suggests that a well-crafted omnivore or vegetarian diet (which includes protein rich foods like eggs and dairy) is probably easier to maintain and overall a more beneficial choice.
50% Vegan: How to Track Your Fruit and Veggies
Based on the above research, we want to aim for about 800 grams of fruits and veggies per day. In practice, this corresponds to filling roughly 3 plates halfway with fruits and veggies. This is why I say I eat 50% vegan! It’s simple and easy to remember. Just aim to compose roughly half of every meal with fruits and veggies.
For most people with a healthy BMI, this equals around 20-25% of their daily calories. It’s around 500 kcal, 100 grams of carbs and 30 g fiber on average. The recommended daily fiber intake is 14 grams per 1000 kcal, so this meets that recommendation as well.
If you eat more or less than three meals a day, the principle remains the same. You can just stick to the goal of covering half of your plate with veggies, and the portions should roughly average out. For example, if you eat two larger meals per day, you’ll eat two larger portions of fruits and veggies. And if you eat 4 or 5 smaller meals, you’ll eat 4-5 smaller portions.
If you’re active, muscular or training a lot, you’ll likely eat bigger meals (more calories) which will increase your intake of fruits and veggies. Again it will all average out.
Choosing the Best Fruits and Vegetables for Your Goals
We’ve been talking about fruits and veggies. Let’s dive into what that means. Which fruits and veggies are best? What should you be eating to achieve your goals?
Do processed fruits and veggies count? For the purposes of this article, I mean minimally processed fruits and veggies. In case it needs to be said: I don’t count carrot cake as a veggie or orange juice as a fruit. Both are nutritionally poor and calorically dense compared to their less processed counterparts. Plus, they have a low satiety value, a low thermic effect and are low in fiber. (Below you’ll see examples and cooking tips for minimally processed fruits and veggies.)
What about frozen fruits and veggies? It may seem counter intuitive, but frozen fruits and veggies are often superior to fresh store-bought fruits and veggies. Freezing has a limited impact on the nutritional value of food. In such cases, the harvest is picked when ripe and then flash frozen. By contrast, most “fresh” store-bought fruits and veggies are picked days or weeks before ripening and then transported to the store. Obviously locally sourced plants are going to be another matter. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter much one way or another, so if frozen fruits and veggies make your life easier, feel free to opt for that convenience.
What about starchy veggies? I recommend tracking starchy vegetables as part of your carbs. Although healthy and awesome, starchy veggies have about three times as many calories and carbs as non-starchy veggies. As a result, it’s a good habit to think of them as a separate food category, especially if achieving or maintaining a lean physique is a goal.
Starchy veggies include potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, peas, corn, beans, lentils, etc.
Non-starchy veggies include green leafy vegetables, broccoli, cucumber, mushrooms, artichokes, etc.
Which fruits and veggies are best for weight loss? To further accelerate your weight loss, I recommend steering towards lower calorie fruits and veggies. Try switching dessert for a low calorie fruit plate. Trade your french fries or baked potato for a pile of asparagus. Exchange snacking on potato chips for an apple or some vegetable spears. Just keep making trades until you’ve worked up to 50% vegan. Here’s a list of low-calorie fruits and veggies to help you get started.
Veggies under 25 kcal per 100 grams: pickles, cucumber, cabbage, lettuce, asparagus, turnip, spinach, summer squash, celery, radishes, cauliflower, swiss chard, pumpkin, arugula
Veggies under 50 kcal per 100 grams: broccoli, collard greens, onions, mushrooms, okra, carrots, beet greens, kale, sweet bell peppers, fennel, leeks, eggplants, jalapenos, Brussel sprouts, artichokes
Fruit under 45 kcal per 100 grams: peaches, strawberries, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, blackberries, papaya, grapefruit
Which fruits and veggies are best for endurance and hybrid athletes? If you do lots of training, particularly loads of cardio, you’ll need more calories and more carbs. Consequently, when I train for Ironman or Spartan Ultra I tend to eat a lot of starchy veggies and higher calorie fruit. This is particularly important before and after endurance sessions. As a result, starchy veggies often take up a portion of my fruit and veggie intake.
Which fruits and veggies are best for optimizing recovery? Plants are anti-inflammatory and loaded with vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals with specific colors representing specific phytonutrients. If you want to enhance your performance or recovery even further, you can try to eat all the colors of the rainbow.
General Skill: build some awareness of the diversity of colors available in plants. Try to experiment with new options. For example, if you’re making a salad, try to make it colorful.
Elite Skill: if you want to take this to the elite level, aim to eat a bit of each color each day.
6 Ways to Start Enjoying More Fruits and Veggies Today!
1. How do you eat so many veggies? Start by eating more of the veggies you already know you like. Then once each week branch out and experiment with new veggies or new ways of preparing them (see below). You can also eat a big-ass salad for lunch (see video). I often eat an enormous salad for lunch. On other days, I might make a stir-fry or a loaded omelet. Raw veggies and low calorie fruit also make a great snack: berries, sliced carrots, cucumber, etc.
2. How do you eat veggies at breakfast? Make a veggie-loaded omelet or super smoothie. Cherry tomatoes, low calorie fruit, sliced cucumbers, baby carrots and sliced bell pepper all make great sides at breakfast. Or you can try making a breakfast salad. I’ve eaten the same breakfast for many years: skyr (a low fat high protein yogurt) topped with fruit and a side of vegetable spears (carrot, cucumber celery etc).
Pro tip: spend some time on Sunday preparing a bunch of breakfast salads. Then throw them in some Tupperware containers to use throughout the week.
3. Are veggies giving you gastrointestinal issues? For some people certain carbs can cause gastrointestinal issues. These carbs include Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols (FODMAPs). FODMAPs can be hard for humans to digest, and for some people they can cause bloating, abdominal pain, flatulence, diarrhea, nausea and constipation. If this is you, you can experiment to identify which family of veggies, fruits or foods are giving you an issue. Research has shown that a low-FODMAPs diet can significantly reduce gastrointestinal symptoms. For most people, it’s just a matter of eliminating the offending carb, and then they can happily enjoy all the benefits of fruits and veggies.
4. How do you prepare veggies? It isn’t always easy to find ways to cook veggies, so to give you more options, here are four ways to prepare veggies.
First, you can simply sauté them in a pan. Cooking them in some butter or olive oil will make them less bitter, and sautéing veggies makes it easy to make them sweet, spicy or salty. It typically takes around 10 minutes at medium high heat to sauté veggies. If you’re trying to lose weight, don’t go crazy with butter or cooking oil. Extra virgin olive oil is generally the healthiest option.
Second, you can steam them. So many options here. For instance, you can toss some veggies in olive oil, salt and fresh ground pepper and then steam them for around 3 minutes. For ideas check out the following link. How To Make Steamed Vegetables Taste Amazing | Kitchn (thekitchn.com)
Third, you can braise them. Do you have a bit of time and want to flex your chef muscles? Braising can take a bit of time, but if you want epic fine dining taste, you can explore some braised vegetable recipes. For ideas check out the following link. The Transformative Power of Braising Vegetables | Kitchn (thekitchn.com)
Fourth, you can always eat them raw. I often eat some chopped bell peppers, cucumber and carrots with my morning yogurt bowl. And of course salads are a killer way to get your veggies.
5. Is there a way to make veggies less boring? If you’re bored of eating your veggies, try making them sweet, spicy, salty or sour.
You can make them sweet by adding some berries, oranges, tangerines or cooked onions.
To add some spice try black pepper, garlic, ginger, chile pepper or cumin.
To make them salty try some salt, olives, or feta cheese.
And to make them sour try adding some vinegar, lime or lemon juice.
6. Is there a way to make veggies less bitter? You can soften those bitter tastes by adding something sweet or adding some healthy fats.
To add something sweet try some berries, oranges, tangerines or cooked onions.
And to add some healthy fats try adding some olive oil, feta cheese, avocado, tahini, seeds or chopped nuts.
Closing Thoughts
Fruits and veggies are one of the highest leverage dietary habits you can employ. There is no combination of supplements or macronutrient tinkering that can do as much for your overall health, performance and wellbeing. Try it for one month, and see for yourself!
Thanks for reading!
This article is part of a series that covers the three macronutrients and veggies. You can check out the other articles in the series with the following links.
