Ma Ma Se, Ma Ma Sa, Ma Ma Coo Sa, You're a Vegetable

There's a great article in today's New York Times about how to best prepare different vegetables to optimize their healthfulness. They discuss the fact that it's important to make sure that the vegetables taste good, since the taste is a major deterrent to eating them for many people. A little salt and pepper, some oil and vinegar, etc. can even make broccoli haters happy. I've witnessed the phenomenon with my own eyes.

This is an important point -

"'There is a misperception that raw foods are always going to be better,' says Steven K. Clinton, a nutrition researcher and professor of internal medicine in the medical oncology division at Ohio State University. 'For fruits and vegetables, a lot of times a little bit of cooking and a little bit of processing actually can be helpful.'"

14 Years! 14. Years!

This is not very surprising, but maybe if people keep hearing this stuff they'll make some changes-

"People with four healthy lifestyle behaviors -- not smoking, physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption, and eating five servings of fruit or vegetables a day -- live an average of 14 years longer than people with none of those behaviors, a new British study contends."

Read the entire article in U.S. News & World Report.