--- title: Eating More Fruits and Vegetables Doesn't Help You Lose Weight description: Fruits and vegetables are good for your health, but there's not enough evidence to prove that on their own they can help with weight loss. canonical: https://time.com/3018385/eating-more-fruits-and-vegetables-doesnt-help-you-lose-weight-study-says/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-22T17:42:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:05:35.652Z article:section: Health og:title: Eating More Fruits and Vegetables Doesn't Help You Lose Weight og:description: Fruits and vegetables are good for your health, but there's not enough evidence to prove that on their own they can help with weight loss. og:url: https://time.com/3018385/eating-more-fruits-and-vegetables-doesnt-help-you-lose-weight-study-says/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2092c41448731dcf/69869c9be8524bf6c2603fc0/168837404-1-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4832 og:image:height: 2718 og:image:alt: Fruits and vegetables og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Eating More Fruits and Vegetables Doesn't Help You Lose Weight twitter:description: Fruits and vegetables are good for your health, but there's not enough evidence to prove that on their own they can help with weight loss. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2092c41448731dcf/69869c9be8524bf6c2603fc0/168837404-1-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Eating More Fruits and Vegetables Doesn't Help You Lose Weight, Study Says > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=286411e5-4cac-48cd-9436-a52b156787f4&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How Top Chefs Get You to Eat Your Vegetables [Watch (HLS stream): How Top Chefs Get You to Eat Your Vegetables](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/lqoPP37m.m3u8) (4:09)  _Published 2010-08-12. How big-name chefs-- including LA's Quinn Hatfield -- are shrinking their customers' carnivore quota_ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 22, 2014 5:42 PM UTC  Variety of sliced vegetables Variety of sliced vegetables Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 22, 2014 5:42 PM UTC The research, [published](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/100/2/567.abstract) in _The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition_, reviewed studies that looked at fruit and vegetable consumption and weight gain, and concluded that simply eating more doesn’t doesn’t slim waistlines. Loading up on more fruits and vegetables, without taking out more high-calorie foods like junk food, or making other lifestyle changes such as exercising, won’t have a significant affect on weight. And that’s especially true if the veggies are fried or coated in butter or cheese. In the study, the researchers only correlated fruit and vegetable consumption with weight, and did not ask the participants about their other lifestyle habits, or about how they were cooking their food. In addition, the analysis included just nine studies, some of which involved a small group of participants and which lasted only 16 weeks at the most. It’s possible that weight changes resulting from a true change in diet including more fruits and vegetables might take longer. For those reasons, the researchers still say that consuming more fruits and vegetables may be beneficial for weight loss. “We cannot say with high confidence that there is not some form of a \[fruit/vegetable\] intervention that may have significant effects on weight loss or the prevention of weight gain,” they write. And there are other benefits of adding more fresh fruits and vegetables to your plates. Beyond weight, produce is a reliable and efficient source of nutrients and fiber, and plenty of studies have linked eating them with lower risks of [cancer](http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/07/certain-fruits-and-vegetables-linked-to-lower-breast-cancer-risk/), [heart disease](http://healthland.time.com/2012/12/04/healthy-diet-can-lower-risk-of-recurrent-heart-attack-and-stroke/) and [diabetes](http://healthland.time.com/2010/08/20/leafy-greens-cut-diabetes-risk/). ## Transcript >> Hey! I'm Joel Stein with TIME. We're here at Hatfield's where Chef Quinn Hatfield is going to make us a veggie- centric meal. Not vegetarian, which is mostly vegetables. [ unk ] You got something to make us more excited? >> No. [ unk ] >> No? Come on. How is he getting through this [ unk ]. >> Great. >> Quinn Hatfield is an amazing chef that has worked at Spago and Bouley in New York and Jean Georges in New York. One thing I noticed in his amazing new kitchen, is that the team is like meticulous in all their prep work, and he has built his reputation on this kind of Americanized version of French food, I don't know if he wants me to say that but that's what I think he does. He likes to make really complicated food, although you don't really notice it when you look at the menu but you're gonna notice it now because we're going to make a butternut squash flan with coconut celery soup and the meat on it is just this little skewer of sweetbreads. >> I personally made this dish and its [ unk ] >> You feel like you're almost eating a meat dish. >> Right. This is essentially a vegetarian dish accented with meat bread. >> Right. >> Which is kind of polar opposite from most American cuisine. >> It's like first there's the flan with whole egg yolks, cream and butternut squash. >> And then we'll just drop these in the oven. >> Then he makes a separate soup of pureed celery root, garlic, crème fraiche and coconut milk, and then he adds tomato water, which is when you like chopped tomatoes and hang them overnight in cheese cloth and then just collect the water from the tomatoes. >> Like a really great acidity. >> This is how your parents cooked at home in the old culture, right? >> Totally. Totally. >> So it comes across-- >> Oh yeah. Really light. Really like-- >> I could do that! >> Then while the soup's warming, he cooks these mushrooms in butter and salt. This was the only part I can possibly do at home. >> And I think it's just cool that they look like what every cartoon mushroom-- >> They really do. Yeah. Yeah. >> It's almost like American [ unk ] of a mushroom. >> There could be Smurfs under of each of that. >> Totally. >> Then he takes out the sweetbreads which are like the finest glands of veal I know. >> Okay. So what we do is you take these, these have been poached like a court- bouillon just like flavorful water. >> Court- bouillon is like a broth? >> Yeah. It would be like-- It would be like water with like onions and carrots and maybe little aromatics like bay leaf or peppercorn or something like that. >> And separately he-- he has used meat in a surprising way, where I would normally just-- most of us would just normally use an egg batter. But instead he takes this chicken breast cooked, purees it with cream and he uses that instead of just eggs to make the Panko bread crumb stick. >> What do you think? >> That's a lot of work. I mean -[ unk ] Do you dream of like opening a sushi joint where you can just cut some raw fish and give it to people? >> So basically these just go straight into a fryer. >> Then it's back to the flan he's been baking for two hours. He adds up mushrooms on top and then he goes to the stove to prep the soup. >> This is like from my house probably. >> It's like soup without I think. >> Right. And we just--- You know, we're not- we're not looking for like foam, we're just looking for it to be like sort of lightened up and frothy. >> Finally, he adds the sweetbread skewers. >> To me the sweetbread really is a like, I'm talking about, are garnished bread. In this case, it's about the flan and the soup. >> It's amazing. It's got a little bit of sweetness but not as much as I would have thought in the butter-- >> The soup was this amazing blend of flavors that like they didn't really even need the sweetbreads, but that was just like a fun treat if you can describe by this flan from veal as a fun treat and not feel both gross and evil, and I can. That's what I do. Anyway they were good. Really good. 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