Eat 2 plus 5 and stay alive!!

[Noosner]

I've also found it's easier to eat quite a lot more veg if you find a few vegetarian recipes that you really like and gradually incorporate them into your weekly routine. It doesn't have to be a hair shirt kind of a thing - for example Waitrose's website have a recipe for veggie enchiladas that's absolutely delicious.

One more thing - when having a baked potato, you can have half a sweet potato and half a 'real ' one as I don't think ordinary ones count as part of the quota, but sweet ones definitely do.

Right, I'll stop now before I bore you all to death... (this is a subject close to my heart as you may have guessed).

[mothhawk]

Just read up - one portion is 80g or 3 oz. Oops that is a fail for me then!

But is an 80g apple the same as 80g of lettuce? It's easy to eat an apple or half a carrot and get the 80g, but 80g of lettuce is a plateful. And are we talking raw weight or cooked weight?

[maytreefrannie]

I don't think that the exact bit matters, OK so different parts of the world disagree on the detail but the common thread is that a diet heavy in veggies is good and that many of our plates aren't that balanced and too much alcohol is't going to be good for you either. A common sense approach is probably best

I agree - a common sense approach is best. I feel a mixed diet, a bit of everything with different colours and textures will most likely give you what's needed. I love veggies, eat a little meat, not a great fruit person, so I make sure to start the day with a pear (my favourite fruit).

Anyway, enjoy your food everyone.

[veggiechicken]

I ate 2 peaches while reading this thread

[nic73bay]

Also worth remembering that only 1 portion of pulses count, 1 portion of dried fruit and (as already said) 1 glass of fruit juice can count each day.

So hummus at lunch then lentils in your dinner, for example, could only count as 1 of your 7.

For children a portion is the size of what they can fit in their hand. I tend to treat it the same for adults - I haven't weighed what a handful of everything is though! 80g for everything (other than dried fruit and juices) seems rather strange though as 80g of something like spinach would be way more in terms of nutrition than 80g of something like parsnips... Maybe fibre is also a big factor then...


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[Kristen]

Could treat it as an exam question - like this one

[Rocketron]

May I respectfully request that you don't all "top-up" on your veggies when eating out?
Many times my wife has been to places where lunch is provided and been unable to eat as all the carnivores have decided that the veggie option looks "absolutely scrummy", wiping out the lot but leaving loads of dead animal.
I Thang Yew.

[Alison]

I'm not a canivore, I am an omnivore and will continue to eat what I want when I'm paying for it. I fail to see why I should be penalised just because a restaurant may have bought insufficient vegetables. In doing so it would also perpetuate the myth that meat is king and nothing will ever change.

[chris]

Perhaps you could give an example of a weeks worth of meals where you have eaten your 5 a day every day ?

I tried finding an example of a weekly meal planner from a Government dept. that illustrated how to get 5 a day for 7 days but drew a blank . . .

If this is Government advice shouldn't everyone be doing it ? including those on benefits ? and if benefits aren't sufficient to buy all the fruit and veg needed for the 5/7 a day for 7 days a week then isn't there some contradiction in the message ?

My wife does 99% of the cooking as she is at home whilst the kids are young (out of choice, before anyone gets on their high horse/makes assumptions). Each week she'll go through various books and plan what we have each day for dinner (and sometimes lunch). It's one way our shopping bill is far, far less than friends/family. We simple don't buy what we're not going to eat for the next couple of weeks.

We do eat very healthily though - and as we have two young kids, we consatly have a full fruit bowl (the kdis go through fruit like anything - we have a rule in our house where they don't have to ask for fruit, but check we're not about to eat dinner (so they don't gorge out on fruit first)).

Our next menu - I'll copy here for you

This morning though, breakfast for us was a smoothie (blueberries, mango, strawberries+ a spoonful of peanut butter (tis nice, and obviously full of protien ). Porridge with banana (kids had redcurrants from freezer on theirs). Fruit weight wise, I don't know - but it was half of the easy yo yoghurt container thingy - the rest rice milk.

Kids had orange juice (not from concentrate.. !), I cheaped out with a coffee hehe

Conservatively, that's at least two portions each, going by what the NHS site above says.

Lunch wise, kids lunch is already done - which is a sandwich, 1 carrot, box of raisens, an apple each (small one), carton of juice for the one who goes to school - other one here will have whatever she demands as no doubt the carton will be thrown across the kitchen as it's not purple . Take that as another portion - most of the time all the lunch is eaten, but occasionally, some is left.

2 left - which will definately be covered by dinner (veg portion wise anyway). Today it's a casserole I think (going by the smell - I'm upstairs at the mo as working @ home).

That doens't include what is niblbed on through the day by them (and us too really).

Biscuit wise mind, I probably eat about 17 portions of a day! One reason I'm gladI'm working at home heh - no biscuits here!!

That is a good point though, I've never seen or heard of a meal planner - they really should do an example week at the very least - a month would be better.

[chris]

Also - to add, we don't eat that much meat - perhaps 2, 3 times a week max? The rest of our dinners feature veg as the "main". Infact, most really. Other than a Sunday roast if we have one.. ?

[Kristen]

I'm not a canivore, I am an omnivore and will continue to eat what I want when I'm paying for it. I fail to see why I should be penalised just because a restaurant may have bought insufficient vegetables. In doing so it would also perpetuate the myth that meat is king and nothing will ever change.

For me making a good vegetarian option is not something we have any great skill at (compared to meat + veg which we more normally cook), so when we go out having a restaurant chef, who really knows what they are doing, make us a vegetarian dish makes a nice change and is usually a treat.

When vegetarians friends come here and I go out of my way to make them a vegetarian "option". None of them have ever served me meat when I go to theirs ...

[Alison]

When vegetarians friends come here and I go out of my way to make them a vegetarian "option". None of them have ever served me meat when I go to theirs ...

If one of my vegetarian friends come round I'll probably cook vegetarian for everybody as it's easier that way, can't be bothered with options . Likewise I've got a friend that can't eat pork so I'd cross that off the list if she was coming too even if everybody else liked it. Think I'd find it a bit odd if a vegetarian did cook meat for me really and I always think that the best food you cook is the stuff you like anyway

[RaptorUK]

My wife does 99% of the cooking as she is at home whilst the kids are young (out of choice, before anyone gets on their high horse/makes assumptions). Each week she'll go through various books and plan what we have each day for dinner (and sometimes lunch). It's one way our shopping bill is far, far less than friends/family. We simple don't buy what we're not going to eat for the next couple of weeks.

We do eat very healthily though - and as we have two young kids, we consatly have a full fruit bowl (the kdis go through fruit like anything - we have a rule in our house where they don't have to ask for fruit, but check we're not about to eat dinner (so they don't gorge out on fruit first)).

Our next menu - I'll copy here for you

Thank you for the comprehensive reply

[RaptorUK]

Also - to add, we don't eat that much meat - perhaps 2, 3 times a week max? The rest of our dinners feature veg as the "main". Infact, most really. Other than a Sunday roast if we have one.. ?

We have cut down dramatically on our meat consumption, especially red meat, not particularly on purpose more of a by product of my plan to lose weight, I was 15st 2lbs with a BMI of 36.4 in August 2012, I got inspired by the Horizon programme "East, Fast and Live Longer" and have lost 65lbs and am almost no longer overweight with a BMI of 25.3 we have red meat maybe 2 or 3 times a week the other days is veg or fish + veg.

[Ananke]

I thought we done really well when it came to 5 a day but when I actually count it up we don't do as well as I thought. 7 cherry tomatoes is one portion??? We eat a LOT of salad during spring, summer and autumn but I don't think I've ever put 7 cherry tomatoes on the plates, even when there is a glut.