In A Hurry During The 9 To 5?

Buy ready-to-eat packaged fresh vegetables that are already cleaned. Pre-cut vegetables and salad mixes are a terrific time-saver. You'll find them at your local supermarket.

• A fast food alternative? Your local supermarket may offer prepared items, including sliced melons, fresh pineapple, salad mixes, and a salad bar to satisfy your hunger.
• Fruits and vegetables are nature's original fast food. When it's snack time, grab
• Fruit— an apple or orange, or a zip lock bag and fill with sweet cherries, grapes, dried dates, figs, prunes, raisins, or apricots
• Vegetables— carrot sticks, broccoli, or some red, yellow, and green pepper. Try dipping your vegetables in low-fat or non-fat salad dressing.
• In a hurry for a healthy treat? Pick fruits and vegetables that require little peeling or chopping, like baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower, grapes, broccoli spears, an apple, a banana, or a box of 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice.
• Here's a great way to get a variety of fruits and vegetables in your daily diet. Buy low-fat or non-fat yogurt, fruit juice, and fresh, canned, or frozen fruit to blend a quick fruit smoothie. Get juicy! Buy 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice to quench your thirst and satisfy one serving of your fruit and vegetable goals.

Top Your Meals With Fruits and Vegetables

Try these tasty additions to add flavor to your salad:

• Green or red pepper strips, broccoli florets, carrot slices, or cucumber add crunch to your pasta or potato salad.
• Baby carrots, shredded cabbage, or spinach leaves bring color to a green salad.
• Apple chunks, pineapples, and raisins perk up coleslaw, chicken or tuna salads.
• Oranges, grapefruit, or nectarine slices add extra flavor to any salad.
• Fruit juice, flavored vinegars, or herbs make low-fat salad dressings flavorful without adding fat or salt.
• Add sliced banana, blueberries, or raisins to cereal.
• Add fresh fruit and vegetables to foods you already eat — like berries and bananas to yogurt and cereal; vegetables to pasta and pizza; and lettuce, tomato and onion to sandwiches.
• Put some punch into your party by blending 100 percent fruit juices to create a refreshing new juice. Try mixing pineapple, orange, grapefruit, or other fruit juices. Add a slice of lemon or lime as a garnish.