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:

Blueberry 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.

French fries: Do you really need to ask? You're better off if you slice your own potatoes and bake them. Or try the frozen kind that bake up nice and crispy.

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."

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