Get Your “5 A Day” For Under 25 Carbs

You can’t eat fruits and vegetables on a low carb diet, right?
Wrong! Fruits and vegetables are a vital part of any diet and
supply vitamins, minerals, enzymes and other nutrients that are
important to your health and well being. Even though most people
know the value of fruits and vegetables, it seems a lot of
people get caught up in thinking that they must eat only meat on
a low carb eating plan and often don’t get enough fruits and
vegetables despite what their diet plans recommend. You should
try to eat at least the minimum USRDA of fruits and vegetables,
especially raw, to provide you with fiber which is not found in
meats and can be lacking on a low carb eating plan, as well as
vitamins and minerals for added energy.

How much do you need?

The USDA recommends that you get 2-4 servings of fruits and 3-5
servings of vegetables a day. The actual amount of servings
recommended for each individual is based on their recommended
calorie intake. So, if you eat1600 calories a day you would want
2 servings of fruits and 3 servings of vegetables, if you eat
2200 calories a day you should have 3 servings fruit and 4
servings vegetables and if you eat 2800 calories a day you
should eat 4 servings fruit and 5 servings vegetables.

But one of the great things about low carb eating is that you
don’t have to count calories, so how do you figure out how many
servings you need if you don’t know how many calories you are
eating? Well, first off, You can’t eat “too many” fruits and
vegetables so if you can fit in the max servings (or more) and
still stay within your carb budget than go for it! Otherwise,
you might judge the amount of servings you need by assessing
your size and activity level. If you are small and/or have a
sedentary lifestyle than you would probably fall into the 1600
calorie category and, therefore should target 2 servings fruits
and 3 of vegetables. If you are a bigger person and/or very
active you should probably target the higher range of servings.

What is a serving?

When measuring out servings of fruits and vegetables it is
important that you stick to the amount for 1 serving, otherwise
you will be adding more carbs and could go over your limit.
Below are serving sizes for raw and cooked foods:

Raw Vegetables = 1 cup Cooked Vegetables = ½ cup Raw Fruit = 1
medium fruit or ½ cup cut up or canned fruit Juice (Fruit or
Vegetable) = 3/4 cup

It’s easier than you think!

If you want to get in your 5 a day and only add 25 g carbs total
to your daily carb intake, you simply need to find fruits and
veggies whose serving size is around 5 grams of net carbs each.
When figuring the carb amounts in fruits and vegetables, it is
important to remember to subtract the fiber from the total carbs
to get the “net carbs”. This is because fiber is not digestible
and does not convert to glucose, therefore it doesn’t count as a
carbohydrate in your low carb budget. So if you have a piece of
fruit that is 10 carbs and 4 grams fiber your net carbs is only
6 grams! The fruits and vegetables listed below are shown with
their net carb amounts.

Below I have listed out 29 choices you can add to your diet for
under 10 grams (approx) of net carbs for each serving (as
defined by the USDA). You can mix and match, so for instance if
you ate spinach at 1 grams for 1 serving you could then have
strawberries for 8 grams of net carbs and still not go over the
10 grams for both servings.

Artichoke …………. 7.5g Asparagus …………. 2g Avocado
…………. 5g Beets …………. 8g Broccoli ………….
2.6g Carrot …………. 5g Cauliflower ……….. 3g Celery
…………. 1/2g cucumber with peel….. 6g Eggplant
………….3g Green beans ………..5g Kumquat (1)
………..3g Lettuce ………….1g Mushrooms ………….4g
Passion fruit ………4g Peach ………….9g Peas
………….10g Peppers ………….10g Plum ………….8g
Prunes (dried) ……..5g Rhubarb ………….7g Spaghetti
squash ……1/2g Spinach ………….1g Strawberries
……….8g Swiss chard ………..7g Tangerine ………….8g
Tomato ………….2.5g Yellow squash ………2.5g Zucchini
………….3.5g

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