Eating a variety of colorful vegetables and fruits is one of the simplest nutrition upgrades you can make. Aim for a mix of vegetables and fruit at meals. Fresh, frozen, or canned all count! Look for frozen and canned vegetables with no or low sodium. Frozen, dried, or canned fruits with no or very limited added sugars are also good options. Be sure to wash your hands before and after produce preparation. Thoroughly rinse your produce under running water before eating, even produce labeled as pre-washed. Start with one small change: add a vegetable or piece of fruit to your next meal. Learn more at #EatRealFood# #HealthyEating# #NutritionTips# #ChronicDiseasePrevention# #CDCHealth# #HealthyLiving#

Eating 85 percent dark chocolate every day for three weeks lowered negative moods in a randomized trial, and the people who ate it ended up with more varied gut bacteria. The 70 percent chocolate had no clear effect on mood. Seoul National University researchers split 48 healthy adults aged 20 to 30 into three groups. One group ate 30 grams a day of 85 percent dark chocolate, about a third of a standard 100-gram bar. Another ate 30 grams of 70 percent chocolate, and the third ate none. The study appeared in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. Mood was tracked with a standard questionnaire that measures good and bad feelings, such as feeling upset, nervous, or irritable. After three weeks, bad feelings dropped in the 85 percent group, and the 70 percent group showed no clear change. Stool samples from the 85 percent group showed a wider variety of gut bacteria than the no-chocolate group. One type, Blautia obeum, went up, and another, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, went down. People whose gut bacteria became more varied, and whose Blautia obeum rose the most, had the biggest drops in bad mood. Dark chocolate may work like food for certain gut bacteria, the researchers suggest, and those bacteria could affect mood through the connection between the gut and the brain. Each group had only 14 to 18 people, and the link between bacteria and mood is a correlation. In this trial, the darker chocolate lowered bad moods within three weeks, and the milder one left mood about where it started.

Eating well on a budget doesn’t mean buying every expensive “health” food at the grocery store. A lot of it comes down to going back to basics: eggs, whole proteins, simple snacks, and foods you can use for more than one meal. A little planning can also save you from paying for convenience when you’re hungry and have nothing ready. What’s your go-to budget-friendly healthy meal?