o you know that 25% of all the vegetables eaten in this country are in the form of French fries? If you subtract French fries and potato chips from America's total daily fruit and vegetable consumption, you'll find that, on average, we eat only 32 servings of fruits and vegetables a day (five a day is the minimum recommendation).

What you eat directly affects your health, and there is a huge disconnect between the foods we are eating and the foods we should be eating. Each day, food producers make 3,900 calories of food per person-nearly twice the amount of food that we need! Maybe this fact would be easier to swallow if these were healthy, nutritious foods, but they're mainly processed foods, filled and expanded with inexpensive ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, refined flour, hydrogenated fats, and other additives and preservatives. These processed ingredients are not "natural" and they are contributing to our collective weight and health problems.

These cheap, poor quality ingredients are ubiquitous in highly processed foods-just read the ingredient list on your favorite cookies, energy bars, and even hot dogs. The government and food manufacturers like to blame the public, our food preferences, and lack of physical activity for our current health crisis. However, consider three major factors that influence our food choices: $33 billion a year is spent on advertising these processed foods; processed foods are available everywhere, including schools and gas stations; and since price is a major determinant of our food choices, consumers respond to the fact that it's more economical to buy foods in larger quantities. The most worrisome consequence of this "eat more" environment is that the more food that is put in front of us-registered dietitians included-the more we will eat, without even noticing that we ate more! Consumers cannot plausibly shoulder all the blame for the demand created in this type of atmosphere.

Although food is overly abundant, if we all woke up tomorrow and decided that we wanted to eat real food instead of chemicals, and that we would start eating our "5 a day," there wouldn't be enough food to go around. Farmers would have to double their fruit and vegetable crop acreage just to grow enough for each of us to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

So what are you eating? Now is a great time to honestly evaluate your diet over the last few years. What have you been putting into your body? Is it unprocessed whole foods or is it energy bars, power smoothies, fat-free cookies, sodas, artificial sweeteners, and purple ketchup?

Fast foods, sodas, and desserts used to be a special treat that we enjoyed only occasionally, but something in our culture has changed to make people believe that it's okay to eat these items every day. We need to start understanding that these low-nutrient foods only fit into a healthy diet when they are eaten on occasion. Over and over I hear people justifying poor eating habits, like drinking several sodas (diet and regular) a day, with exercise. I agree that exercise is an important component of health and it helps to burn off extra calories that sodas and other high calorie foods provide, but it doesn't change the fact that people are pouring unhealthy chemicals into their bodies.

It's easy to start making healthy changes in your diet. You should be doing most of your grocery shopping around the perimeter of the store. Fresh produce, nuts, organic milk and yogurt, seafood, meat, and soy-based foods should be your major supermarket destinations. Down the grocery aisles, seek out whole-grain cereals, pastas, and breads, as well as dried or canned beans. Try to focus on the quality of your food, as well as the quantities that you eat them in. You don't need gimmicky diets and the processed foods that go with them-they won't promote health or long-term weight loss. Just remember that you are what you eat, so try not to worry too much about the carbs, fat, and protein in your food. If you make an educated effort to choose a variety of healthy foods, all the rest will fall into place.