Any fruits and vegetables are better than no fruits and vegetables. For peak flavor and good value, fresh produce in season is always a good choice. But frozen or canned fruits and vegetables, without added salt or sugar, are just as good for you as fresh. Here some easy ways to sneak more fresh and frozen fruits and veggies into your diet.

* Buy many kinds of fruits and vegetables when you shop. Buy frozen and dried, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables
* Experiment with new types of fruits and veggies
* Keep a fruit bowl, raisins or other dried fruit on the kitchen counter and in the office
* Keep a bowl of cut-up vegetables on the top shelf of the refrigerator for snacking
* Add fruit to breakfast by having fruit on cereal
* Choose fruit for dessert and use frozen fruits for smoothies
* Add fruits and vegetables to lunch by adding them in soup, salads, or cut-up raw
* Add extra varieties of frozen vegetables when you prepare soups, sauces, and casseroles

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It’s time to make friends with the produce aisle: pumping your diet with fruits and vegetables isn’t just good for your waistline — it could save your life, according to new research from the University of Oxford.

While “5 a day” has traditionally been the mantra for fruit and veggie consumption, researchers found that those who consumed eight or more servings were 22 percent less likely to die from heart disease than those who consumed three or fewer servings a day.

Even among those who couldn’t manage the eight servings, more fruits and veggies consistently meant a lower risk; for every additional serving above two per day, researchers observed a four percent decrease in the rate of heart disease deaths.

Though past studies have linked the consumption of fruit and vegetables to heart health, many remain skeptical as to whether these foods have a direct protective effect on the heart. Given the size of Tuesday’s study (over 300,000 participants from eight different European countries) and the strength of its findings, some doctors feel that it may erase and remaining doubts concerning fruits and veggies, and cardiovascular health.

In the U.S., the recommended consumption of fruits and vegetables has often been promoted as “five a day”. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moved away from that recommendation in 2007, to a more flexible approach, dubbed Fruits & Veggies – More Matters.

Instead of a flat recommendation of five servings a day, the new program changes recommendations based on age, sex and activity level. For a 40-year-old sedentary man, recommendations are now two cups of fruits and three cups of vegetables a day; for a sedentary woman of that age, the recommendation is 1.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of veggies.

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