Do you pack your breakfast, lunch and dinner with fruits and veggies? While it can be difficult to fit in five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day, a new study provides more motivation for doing something you probably already know is the right thing for your health.

People who had at least five servings of plant-based foods each day had a 28 percent less risk of heart failure compared with those whose diets contained fewer fruits and veggies.

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York analyzed questionnaires about eating habits and came up with five patterns. They are the convenience diet, think Mexican and Chinese-style food of mixed meat and beans; a sweets diet of fats, bread and desserts; a Southern diet of fats, fried food, processed meat and egg dishes; the alcohol and salad diet of beer, wine, liquor, salads, nuts and coffee; and lastly, the plant-based diet rich in fruits and vegetables, cereal, fish and poultry.

They then tracked more than 30,000 participants, all of whom were at least 45 years old and none of whom had a diagnosed heart condition. After nearly nine years, they followed up with the respondents and found nearly 600 had been hospitalized for heart failure. Those who followed the plant-based diet fared the best of all of the categories.

The researchers said the five eating patterns reflect the real world and how people eat, and the results clearly indicate the value of having a plant-based diet. While acknowledging that sticking to such a diet is tough, they urged physicians to get more involved in their patients’ eating patterns. When it comes to staying on the right dietary track, sometimes it takes a village.