To be happy, it is enough to eat seven servings of various fruits and vegetables every day. Happiness and mental health are fully inherent in those who do just that.
Professors of economics and public health researchers in the UK have studied the eating habits of 80,000 people and found that mental well-being improves with the amount of fruits and vegetables consumed by people daily and peaks at seven servings a day. A serving should mean about 80 grams of food.
Currently, in most Western countries, people are advised to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily to strengthen the health of the cardiovascular system and protect against cancer.
According to this study, which is scheduled for publication in the journal Social Indicators Research, in the UK today, 25% of the population add only one serving of fruits and vegetables to their daily diet, or even do not eat them at all. And only 10% of the UK population currently consumes the magic number of daily servings - seven or more.
The study did not distinguish between different types of fruits and vegetables.
“The statistics for such a powerful potential for fruits and vegetables came as a surprise,” said co-author Sarah Stuart-Brown, professor at the University of Warwick. “Diet was usually ignored by researchers.”
These are statistical melons. Scientists still have much to learn about causal relationships and the action of possible mechanisms.
