Better living with beets

The Coca Cola company has been telling us for over a year now that drinking Coke will make us happy.  Have you noticed all the "Open Happiness" billboards and commercials?  I think this is a brilliant ad campaign.  Who doesn't want to be happy, right?  Why didn't the U.S. Broccoli Council (I assume there is one) think of this first?

That is why I was so interested in the Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index - a project that maps well-being in the U.S.   They did not include Coke drinking on their list of quality of life indicators.  They did include fruit and vegetable consumption.  They asked people lots of questions, including whether they ate at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day on at least four of the previous seven days.   Then they made a map comparing fruit and vegetable consumption all over the U.S., by congressional district.  They also mapped other indicators such as obesity, health insurance, stress and learning.

Take a look.  I enjoyed spending some time with these maps.  Maybe you will too.  I don't know if they prove that rutabagas will make you happy.  But I do think they show that eating more fruits and vegetables is a really good idea.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/06/weekinreview/20110306-happiness.html?ref=us