Whether it’s ‘Eat your veggies’, or ‘Get your 5-a-day’ – we’ve heard them all, especially at this time of year. But, a plant-based diet is a great way of celebrating fruits and vegetables, increasing our health for the long term as well as reducing risks in certain diseases – and that’s not where their benefits ends – here’s five more reasons to tuck in.
To increase dietary fibre
Government guidelines say our dietary fibre intake should be 30g a day as part of a healthy balanced diet. As most adults are only eating an average of about 18g day, we need to find ways of increasing our consumption. There’s strong evidence that eating plenty of fibre (roughage) is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. Fibre rich foods can also aid digestion and prevent constipation.