Eat Your Veggies

By Leanne Ely, CNC

Did you know that if you eat more fruits and vegetables, you are half as likely to develop cancer as those who eat the least amount of these foods?

There are irrefutable facts to support this statement. It’s not just pie in the sky dreaming; it’s a true promise. Eat more fruits and vegetables, and increase the odds in your favor of living a cancer free life! Is that not incredible?

I know I am constantly beating the “eat fruits and vegetables” drum, but when you consider the bazillions of dollars spent on researching chronic disease, isn’t amazing that there is nothing on the same par as being proactive with your diet? Who knew a simple thing like eating more produce could massively improve the quality of your life?

Here’s some scary stuff to ponder:

• More than 125 million people have some sort of chronic illness.
• About half of chronically ill Americans are under the age of 45 and 15% of that number are children with chronic conditions!
• It is estimated that 300,000 to 800,000 preventable deaths per year in the United States are nutrition related. Did you see that?? NUTRITION RELATED DEATH! That means the junk you eat can literally kill you!

It’s time for a revolution, people! Are you ready for it?

It’s time to go GREEN. Green as in boosting your green eating power to get the nutrition your body needs. Let me ask you something--if there is a direct correlation between excellent health and doing this one thing—eating plenty of fruits and veggies each day, how can you possibly ignore this?

I am challenging everyone reading this to do what you can to get more green, more yellow, more orange and more red in your meals, each and everyday. Eat by color—green for beans, broccoli, spinach, kiwis and lettuces. Yellow for squash, orange for oranges and sweet potatoes and red for apples and peppers. Yes we can do this!

And the one of the best ways is making veggie soups, lots of them. Here’s a wicked good green soup that is double the green to make you healthy and lean. Enjoy!

Cream of Green Soup
Makes about 8 cups

1 tablespoon olive oil (don’t use extra virgin olive oil for cooking*)
1 large onion – chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 10 ounce bag frozen chopped broccoli (I use organic)
1 10 ounce bag frozen spinach (organic if available)
2-3 cups chicken broth (low sodium, gluten free, no MSG)
1 teaspoon thyme
sea salt and fresh ground pepper -- to taste

In a soup pot, heat olive oil over medium high heat and cook onion. When onion is translucent, add garlic and broccoli and 2 cups of the chicken broth. Cook till broccoli is tender, about 3 minutes or so. Now add the spinach, thyme, salt and peppering to taste. Cook till all is tender and good, about 5 more minutes.

In a blender, blend soup in batches and serve with a liberal grinding of fresh pepper over the top. If soup is too thick and more chicken broth (up to a cup) to thin.

*Only use extra virgin olive oil for raw foods, like salads. Regular olive oil is fine for cooking, the smoke point is much higher than that of extra virgin olive oil.

© 2009 JJ Virgin & Associates, Inc. JJ Virgin, PHD, CNS is a celebrity wellness expert, author, public speaker and media personality. She is internationally recognized as the leader of the Weight Loss Resistance Revolution™ and trains other health care professionals in her program. She is the president of the National Association of Nutrition Professionals, www.nanp.org.

If you are frustrated with your body and feel like nothing you are doing is working, take her free quiz "Are You Weight Loss Resistant?" at www.jjvirgin.com and receive her monthly LEANzine loaded with insider information on fighting fat and getting lean for life!