Nine-a-day count can go up and down

So … do french fries count as a vegetable?

A patient had a question for Dr. Lewis Pincus.

“She wanted to know if the pineapple chunks in her pineapple ice cream counted as a fruit serving,” says Pincus, medical director of the Methodist Health System Weight Management Institute.

On one hand, the question merits a “You’re kidding, right?”

On the other hand…well, do they?

And what about blueberry pie, spinach quesadillas, french fries — do they count toward the nine-a-day goal?

Well, yes … and no.

“It depends,” says Leah Tiller, a nutritionist at the Town North Family YMCA. “It all counts.”

But when you fry otherwise healthful vegetables, “you’re adding so much bad stuff, it negates the good stuff,” she says.

“It’s less that frying sucks the nutrients out, and more about it adding a lot of unwanted fat,” says Bernadette Latson, a registered dietitian and assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

It’s kind of like a board game: Go ahead three spaces for those blueberries; go back two because they were held together with sugar and tucked into a crust. The veggie pizza merits two spaces; go back one because you ordered it with extra cheese.

We asked Latson her take on several foods that purport to include produce and that we tend to get a hankering for:

Spinach quesadillas: They count if you pile on the spinach (at least 1/2 cup to get a serving). Use low-fat cheese.

Fried okra: “Fuggedaboudit!” says Latson.

“I probably put my personal bias in there. In other words, if I truly loved it, I could probably find something good about it.”

Maybe bake those crumb-coated morsels. Or steam them, which some would argue totally defeats the purpose.

Bluebery muffins: Maybe, “but there aren’t enough blueberries to make a serving of fruit, and the muffins typically have lots of sugar, fat and calories,” she says.

Make your own. Use whole-wheat flour and add a wheat-germ topping to get more nutrients.

Chiles rellenos: Maybe. Stuff them with a mixture of vegetables, rice and lean meat. And bake instead of fry.

Baked squash casserole:

A big maybe. Cafeteria and home-style servings can have 400 calories or more, says Pincus.

Latson has a recipe using sauteed squash, grated carrots, breadcrumbs and low-fat sour cream.

“Yummm!” she says. “I think it’s way ahead of fried squash … and an easy way to get two or three servings of vegetables.”

French fries: Do you really need to ask?

You’re better off if you slice your own potatoes and bake them. Or try the Whole Foods frozen kind that bake up nice and crispy.

A rule of thumb

Valerie Green, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the 5 a Day for Better Health program, says fruits and vegetables count, unless they’re highly processed, like french fries, and have lost the nutritional value of the vegetable they came from.

The 5 a Day program has a rule of thumb, she says: Each 1/2 cup serving should have no more than 3 grams of saturated fat and be 100 calories or less.

“If the only way to eat broccoli is to have it with cheese, try light cheese and go easy on it,” she says.

And on salads, use healthy olive oil-based dressings rather than creamy ones.

Did you say nine?

If the idea of nine servings a day makes you want to:

A. Reinstate ketchup as a vegetable,

B. Count watermelon-flavored Jelly Bellys as a fruit or

C. Hyperventilate,

Don’t fear. It’s not as hard as it might seem.

Here are tips, courtesy of registered dietitian Bernadette Latson, to make the process as smooth as a smoothie (blend a banana, a handful of frozen berries, 3/4 cup of grape juice and milk. Voila! Three servings):

• Think seasonal. Sure, you can get most produce all year long. But they’re tastiest in season. Look for dark orange and yellow squash now.

• Keep it simple. When you make pasta, toss a handful or two of frozen broccoli in the cooking water at the last minute. Top your cereal with blueberries. Add a cup of peas to a casserole.

• Choose dark. Generally, the darker the color, the higher the nutrient content. Learn about the spectrum of produce at www.5aday.com and click on the “Color Way.”

• Ask, for the health of it. When you eat out, ask the server to swap out the chips or fries for a small salad or fruit.

“I’ve never had anybody say no,” says Latson, assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

• Go to the source. Juice is good, but sometimes opt for the fruit from which it comes.

You can drink 3/4 cup of orange juice in a couple of seconds — long enough for you to get your vitamin C but quick enough to let you grab a pastry to go with it.

Peeling and eating an orange, though, takes time. Plus you get the fiber and a fuller feeling.

• Make it handy. Instead of telling your kids and their friends, “There are apples in the fridge,” cut some up, sprinkle with cinnamon and serve to the little fruit-phobes.

“They absolutely get gobbled up,” says Latson.

• Fresh and frozen. If fresh isn’t available, frozen is just fine. Try to avoid canned, though, which can be overprocessed and heavy on the sodium.

• Get inspired. Check out a farmers’ market. You’re bound to leave with bags full of the familiar and the unfamiliar.

• Balance. Some cooked veggies, some raw; some low-fat, some higher.

• Variety. It’s the best insurance for getting all the nutrients.

• Moderation. A little of anything is fine; just don’t go overboard.

• Don’t let cost keep you down. “Some people get upset because some of their veggies rot, but cost-wise, that’s minuscule compared to eating out a lot,” Latson says.

A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that most fruits and vegetables cost less than 50 cents a serving. A pound of summer peaches at 99 cents per pound, for example, yields more than four 1/2 -cup servings.