Eat your fruit and veggies to help your mental health

Eat your five serves of fruit and vegetables a day. That's the message from scientists to help reduce rates of depression, anxiety and stress.

A study by Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has found people who consume less than one serve of vegetables a day, or half a cup or less, have 1.6 times the odds of suffering psychological distress.

That's compared with people who eat the recommended five or more serves a day.

The study of 45,000 people also found the benefit of vegetables peaks for men around three to four serves, while for women, the more the better.

"Women appear to go on benefiting from vegetables in their diet up to five or more serves per day," the lead author of the study from QUT's School of Clinical Sciences, Dr Kerri Gillespie, said.

Women also benefit from co