The vital foods that could be missing from your five-a-day

You’re eating your five-a-day vegetables and fruits—but are you eating the right ones?

Fruits and vegetables aren’t equal when it comes to supporting your health, and especially your heart—for that, you need to be eating those that are rich in flavanols, compounds that boost the cardiovascular system.

Flavanol-rich foods include blueberries, plums, blackberries, broad beans, and cherries—and these get a super boost if you are also drinking green tea, say researchers at the University of Reading in the UK.

Most people who are eating a healthy diet are not getting enough flavanols, the researchers found.  Fewer than 20 percent are consuming enough flavanols to support a healthy heart, according to a study that tracked more than 30,000 people in the UK and the US.

Even if you’re eating your five-a-day, add more flavanols to the diet, says Javier Ottaviani, the study’s lead author.   “Flavanols can significantly reduce the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, but only if you consume enough of them. Most people assume that eating plenty of fruit and vegetables covers this, but what this research shows is that the specific choices you make matter far more than the total amount.

“Including a handful of blackberries, a whole apple or having a cup of green tea alongside your meal could make a real difference to how much of these beneficial compounds you actually consume and absorb from the diet,” he said.

Earlier studies found that we should be consuming at least 500 mgs of flavanols a day to lower the risk of heart disease.  These levels can easily be reached by eating a mix of a punnet of plums (450 mg of flavanols), or a punnet of cranberries (300mg), a punnet of blackberries (250mg), one cup of green tea (200 mg), a handful of broad beans (140 mg), a punnet of cherries (130 mg), one apple (110 mg), or a punnet of strawberries (90mg).

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