By Emily Murray

Nutritional guidelines are made to be changed right? It’s not out of the ordinary to switch up these rules for healthy eating as a nation growing more weight and health conscious. The latest modification is to the amount of fruits and veggies you should consume in a day. We all know that these natural wonders are good for us, but how many should we eat in order to get the maximum benefit? According to new research, that magic number is 7.

In fact, including 7 servings of fruit or vegetables daily is now believed to cut the risk of death by 42%. Special emphasis is given to consuming vegetables as opposed to fruit. While both are healthy, the highest amount of benefits appears to come from eating veggies specifically.

This latest discovery came from research conducted in the UK. A survey consisting of more than 65,000 adults over 35 years of age over a 7 year span was used to gather this important information as part of the Healthy Surveys for England.

The risk for certain deadly disease like cancer and heart disease appear to dissipate with each servings consumed over time. How much lower exactly? Well, researchers found that those who ate their vegetables regularly had a 25% lower risk of death from cancer and a 31% lower risk of dying from stroke or heart disease.

This proves that your mom was right all along….”you’ve got to eat your veggies!”