Are my dinners rubbish?

How could I forget that! I think I've hit 30 today alone now. McDonalds for the rest of next week it is then.

Quinine in the tonic = plant. Come on, you have to be accurate about this!

Of course they are!

Well I weight train and am built like a brick shithouse and some nights I will have three scrambled eggs with beans on toast. Very delicious, filling and decent macros. I’m sure a seven year old will be absolutely fine.

Gin and tonic for me so one for the juniper berries and a bonus one for the cucumber I've put in it. We are smashing this!

Exactly. I wish more women would cut themselves some slack. Every year it’s something else designed to make us feel like failures. If it’s not UPFs it’s protein, if it’s not protein it’s carbs etc etc etc. It’s exhausting.

And as someone from the Mediterranean I’m really enjoying all the posters saying salad and pasta with pesto are not nutritionally dense foods.

And the audacity of serving rice AND potatoes?! I should tell my mother she has been poisoning us with her delicious stews (that - shock horror - contain potatoes) with rice on the side. I’m sure she will hang her head in shame.

I like pizzoccheri...wholemeal pasta with potatoes, cabbage and cheese (can you tell I'm from the North of Italy?)

We had pesto pasta tonight...I do half pesto, half cream cheese to make it creamier and then chuck in what ever vegetables I fancy, green beans today.

Anyway Im having a caramel wafer now, so whats that, wheat from the wafer = plant, chocolate = plant, caramel made from sugar = plant

Great stuff!

Yes exactly. Of course its right to have a wide variety of food stuffs and food types, that is the best way to get the most range of digestable and processable nutrients in you. But when the theory stipulates a number, 30 - well why not 32, why not 25, why not 55? It falls apart

And ascribing this or that to a point, half point, this point, that point, no point, view point, well of course its a nonsense from that perspective, that was my point!

And yes its great if you have the palate, its great if you have the money and accessibility to access this variety, its great if you have the time and inclination to access this variety. Not everyone does, not everyone wants to and so I find it tiresome that in response to a good enough food routine of example dinners, a poster is judged or berated for 'not eating 30 plants a week'.

Not on.

And Sardinian potato filled pasta. With mint and cheese. OMG

I did pasta pesto tonight but as a pasta salad, it had chicken, peppers, sweetcorn, peas, chorizo, tomatoes and cucumber.

If it was cold outside it would be a pesto cream sauce with chicken and cheese kinda dinner with veg on the side

Eggs on toast /beans on toast are both going to be quite low calorie for the main meal of the day and I wouldn't consider either a proper meal for a 7-yr old. I'd only do something like that for a lighter lunch. And if she's having sch dinners those are tiny portions and poor quality so to then come home to just egg on toast isn't enough for a growing child.

Indeed. One of my favourite meals, first eaten in Italy, is Ligurian Pasta - pasta with potatoes!

I have a genuine question. No sarcasm or passive aggression - I really do want to know.

Who comes up with/where is the evidence for the 30 types a week where coffee and tea and chocolate count for half of a ‘type’? That just sounds genuinely bonkers…

Due to many serious allergies, we do always cook from scratch and do eat a mountain of fruit and veg, and lean protein (some of the few things I’m not allergic to…), so I’m not questioning this because it’s something I couldn’t imagine getting close to. It just sounds a bit…strange?

Growing up in the 70s, common teas were sardines on toast, with cheese on top under the grill, mushrooms on toast, omlette, or my mum would do this thing that Ive never found a recipe for a sort of baked egg in mushrooms and onion with cheese. Delicious. Alongside other abominations like liver and bacon and actually nice things like shepherds pie. My dad would often have bacon and beans as he usually got back from work quite late.

Not every evening meal has to be some sort of culinary wow. Nothing wrong with a jacket potato and toppings or similar.

This must be why life admin takes so long. I mean it must be hours of work planning a meal that includes 30 plant types and no UPF's.

I agree and I am not.

But it's not unrealistic for many people, I'm sorry. Those are pretty basic simple fruits and veg - generally all those are cheap, readily available. I didn't include any more exotic stuff like squash, or mango, pineapple, expensive berries like blueberries.
If you think that's wildly unrealistic then perhaps you are quite an unusually selective eater and that's your issue, it doesn't make it 'unrealistic for many'.

A typical UK family might eat meals like shepherds pie, roast dinner with veg, a tomato pasta dish with some Mediterranean veg and herbs in the sauce, maybe a stir fry with veg in. All of those are pretty normal family dinners which would easily fit the sort of ingredients I suggested.

Just pasta and pesto? That's really not a proper meal.
And egg on toast with salad I wouldn't count either.
Are these the main meal of the day?

And I forgot mint, and also that during the day I had oats, coffee, tea, green beans, so 40 now.

Honestly - no. My diet is nowhere near that varied and never has been.

Is that the same every week? Everything is dull if you have same thing each week

Herbs count, as do nuts, seeds etc. It's actually really doable. Surely you'd always have in like 4 or 5 lots of fruit (eg bananas, apples, satsumas, raisins, strawberries?) and maybe 4 or 5 veg like carrots, broccoli, onions, peas, sweetcorn. Then a few salad items cucumber, tomato, maybe lettuce, pepper. Potatoes are a plant. Add in a few easy wins - a few herbs, spices, some nuts, stuff like spinach, garlic, you can bung in loads of meals. Then think about stuff like beans, chickpeas, lentils. As a pp said, tea counts! That's easily like 25? Is it so hard to make an effort to add a few extra in after that?