Anyone know if I should count beans, lentils etc. toward veggie servings?
Edit: How about corn?
I ask myself this all the time. Peas are a vegetable, or so I thought. But then I read they are a legume. They are definitely a seed though, but I thought fruit has seeds. That’s why tomato is a fruit. And now I’m being told pineapple is a berry. I give up.
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Right, my current eating habit goal is hitting the 10 servings of fruits/veggies majority of days in the week. I’m finding I’m not sure what to count towards that or not. Legumes or potatoes/starchy plants are tripping me up. I’m not counting potatoes, lumping those in with rice and other grains.
I think sometimes legumes are counted in the protein total and sometimes in the vege total, depending on what the goal of the diet is. I think it’s confusing, too.
Shortly after reading your post, I came across the TLC eating plan ( research-based plan to lower cholesterol), peas and legumes are specifically counted in the vegetable category. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/public/heart/chol_tlc.pdf Scroll to p. 34 box 19. On that same page, potatoes are in the grain category. I think corn is primarily a grain. It can be ground into corn meal and made into corn bread.
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Thank you for providing that, very helpful.
Also now I want corn bread.
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I prefer the categorization of starchy and non starchy vegetables, and to be slightly more nuancedTM, IMO, I consider there to be a spectrum, where potatoes and peas are both starchy, but the Potatoes are more so.
So yes, count your legumes as vegetables, but when you strive to hit your recommended vegetable serving intake, try to get some non starchy veggies in there too.
Here is a decent write up on this subject
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Split peas rock about 50g of fiber, 48g of protein and near zero fat per cup. Combined with a smoked ham hock and slow cooked its one of the greatest meals ever created.
Personally, assigning it a specific definition along the continuum of foodstuffs isn’t something that I ponder to any great degree. Just eat them, and fart to your hearts content.