Weight Management

		Terry Brown, MPH, RD/LD Section Editor, Weight Management Clinical Instructor, Department of Clinical Nutrition UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

Summer veggies
Posted: July 2005
Source: UT Southwestern Health Watch

We're talking about weight and your health this week on Healthwatch. One way to lose weight and improve your health is to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. But are all veggies really good for you? A lot of summer vegetables, like summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers, don't seem to have a lot of vitamins. Does that mean you should skip them?

Dr. Scott Grundy, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at UT Southwestern Medical Center, says that while these vegetables don't contain a lot of the major nutrients you usually see on charts and labels, they are good sources of other nutrients, like zinc, potassium and folic acid. They're also high in water and fiber and low in fat, so they're low in calories, making them a good part of a diet to help you lose weight. These vegetables are a good way to add variety to your diet.