Welcome to Small Bites, Sound Bites, a midweek segment of food for thought podcast where I share short, succinct, thoughtful responses to typical questions, myths, and misconceptions related to plant-based eating, veganism, and animal protection.

You can get written transcripts of this podcast by going to joyfulvegan.com slash donate.

We know a high consumption of vegetables is life-saving and disease-preventing, and yet most people are not meeting the most basic, minimal recommendations to eat two to three cups of vegetables each day.

One of the excuses I hear from a lot of people is that they don't have time to cook or that it takes too long to chop vegetables.

And yet, if we have the time to pack the family into the car, drive to a restaurant, find a parking spot, stand in line to wait for a table, decide what to order, wait for the food, eat the food, wait for the bill, pay the bill, and drive back home again.

We probably have time to chop some vegetables. The bottom line is if we don't have time to be sick, and none of us do, then we have to make time to be healthy.

And you don't have to spend hours in the kitchen doing this, but you do have to spend some hours in the kitchen.

Here is one of my favorite tips. Chop vegetables in advance.

So when you come home from the grocery store, instead of shoving all of the vegetables into the fridge intact, you take 15 minutes to chop them.

You store them in containers or bags, and you place them in the refrigerator.

When it's time to eat, you open the fridge, and you look at the chopped peppers and sliced onion and minced garlic and you're inspired to make a stir fry.

You look at the shredded lettuce and the sliced fennel, and you make a quick salad.

You look at the sliced carrots, and you have a snack while you make dinner.

If we chop them, we will eat them.

Now, how long will they stay in the fridge before losing their freshness?

The answer is about five days or so, but here's a really awesome trademark secret.

Get ready to write this down because it's life-changing advice.

The way to keep fruits and vegetables from going bad is to eat them.

For the animals, both human and non-human, this is Colleen Patrick Adro.

You can find more at joyfulvegan.com. Thanks for listening.