5 a day

[lastqueenofscotland]

Who regularly gets theirs?
Considering I am vegan I get mine ridiculously infrequently. Who manages and who is a bit crap like me

Another vegan here. Get my veggies and salads in bucketloads, but not all that bothered about fresh fruit, so try to eat tinned fruit which I do like.

@Gwenhwyfar - true, but that's still 1-2 portions more than a sandwich with a few sickly strands of iceberg and a sliced of squashed tomato in it.

Where are people finding the time to make all this home made soup? I'm lucky if I get 3 a day.

Does raspberry jam count?

Where are people finding the time to make all this home made soup?

Soup only takes about 45 minutes from scratch including chopping, sweating and blending and is easy to do in large quantities and freezes really well.

Yes! But only last few years due to ketogenic diet... already eaten a bag of salad (mixed lettuce) & half a packet of tomatoes for breakfast!
Used to eat a typical high carb vegetarian diet & didn't have much room for veg after stuffing myself with loads of bread & pasta.

It's interesting that so many of us don't like fruit, and prefer veg or salads. I thought it was just me. I blame our climate. In Italy, in the summer, for example I can eat loads, here, because it is out of season and brought from afar, is all hard and sour, and very unpalatable. The best plum I ever had was picked off a tree on a hot and sultry day. It was literally fruit of the gods .

If you eat a fruit salad that does not count as 5 servings of fruit because there was 5 different fruits, it counts as 1 serving.

So if you have peppers and onions with your taco at dinner time unless you are eating 1 whole (small)pepper and 1 whole (medium)onion, it doesn't count as two servings of veg.

Where are people finding the time to make all this home made soup?

Most good home cooks can make healthy and quickly-prepared family meals. It isn't about spending hours in the kitchen.

Those people listing 9-10 different types of vegetables - you know that isn’t the same as 9-10 portions right?!

As I said before, does it matter? The more different types you eat in a day, the healthier your diet is likely to be. If you eat mostly beige food it is less likely to be a balanced diet.

Purely on the back of this thread I've just made myself crudités (pepper, cuc, avocado,) plus cherry tomatoes to dip in my hummus!

My lunch this very moment
I listed salad yesterday as my lunch. I would put this down as two portions in total (lettuce cucumber tomatoes spring onion carrots and half small avocado). I will probably go back for more lettuce and cucumber.

Just went and ate two plums and an apple so that’s two, fruit salad this morning and stir fry veg with lunch probably one each maybe three all together at a push. Whether I manage depends on when I last went shopping as my nearest one is over an hour away and frozen fruit/veg is all imported (I’m abroad) which I don’t like to buy when I live in a country that grows most of it. If I where to buy peas eg they possible would’ve been grown here then sent to the UK for packaging before shipping back

Sorry but fruit salad can count as more than one portion depending on how big it is and how many different fruits there are.
And..
Sweet corn counts.
Houmous counts.

Yes I do as I am following the Slimming World diet. I am probably having 5 -7 portions a day. Veg or fruit with breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacking on fruit.

I don't make soup anymore because I'm actually properly lazy but I used to make it and it's so easy compared to anything else. Cook off some onions and veggies, add stock or other liquid, and simmer on low for ages. Blitz and done. Plus you can prep a big pot of it (slow cookers even better) and freeze in portions. I genuinely think that's not much more convenient than tinned soup but you have control over what goes in it.

"As I said before, does it matter?"

It matters because it's the point of the thread.

How can you be vegan and not eat enough veg??

I usually have fruit at breakfast (berries), 3 or 4 salad veg with lunch - peppers, cucumber, celery, beetroot, sugar snaps etc?

Maybe an apple in the afternoon then 2 or 3 veg with dinner.

It's really not difficult.

Usually I do but I’m finding January depressing and it’s making me want comfort food.
Today so far I’ve had fruit for breakfast with yoghurt and granola, mango with lunch and will have cucumber, spring onion and baby corn for tea. So I will do it but it’s been quite a beige unhealthy day.
What will we do in April when it’s all tinned/ frozen etc?

SherlockHolmes

With ease. Toast and marge for breakfast, jacket potato with hummus for lunch and vegan spag bol for tea would get you 3 a day max.

My mum is vegan and on some days eats pretty much chips and toast. Vegan doesn't = healthy.

My 2.5yo usually does. I usually would have 2 or 3 at the most. It's something I really need to work on.

Do beans and pulses count? (Hummus) I thought they didn't.

Beans and pulses count but only once. Not sure if hummus is included in that

If you spread them throughout the day it’s easier. So toast and a sliced apple for breakfast, banana mid morning, houmous, tomatoes & pitta for lunch, something like celery & pate to nibble while I’m cooking in the evening, and two veg with supper..Sometimes a fruit based pudding or some dried fruit with coffee.

0-5mins: Put kettle on.

Chop up two leeks (or open a packet of frozen or chopped ones) and tosh in a pan with a tiny bit of oil and a pinch of salt on a low heat.

Take a potato out of the bag, chop into thumb sized pieces.

6-10 mins: Dump into the pan as the leeks have turned luminous green, tip in boiling kettle water. Chuck in a stock cube and a pinch of dried Thyme.

Leave to bubble away whilst you refill the kettle for a cuppa.

11-15mins: Stab the potato, it gives to the point of a knife. Take off the heat whilst you retrieve the stick blender from the cupboard and plug it in.

Blitz. Add a bit more kettle water if it needs it, as that's boiled again in the time.

Bung into bowls. Grind pepper on top.

Or

0-5mins: Open pack of precooked beetroot, hack into quarters, chuck in pan of hot water and stock cube. Stab and bung 2 smallish potatoes in the microwave on full power.

6-10 mins: Take spuds out, cut into quarters. Throw into pan. Chuck in pinch of herbs.

11-15 mins: Get stick blender out, blend into luminous pink soup, add a blob of horseradish and ground pepper. Stir through and allow to reheat whilst getting bowls out of the cupboard.

Or:

0-5 mins: Tip frozen peas into pan, add kettle water, pork stock cube and half a bunch of mint. When hot, blitz. Substitute peas & mint with frozen broccoli and Thyme, chuck some lumps of Stilton in at the end.

We live five minutes away from shops. I can have soup made before the OH gets back with a couple of tins of cat food - and I certainly don't rush myself.

Today's menu has been bean salad, loads of leaves, cucumber, celery, about 10 radishes, potato salad and some more coleslaw. Plus a tray of fruit reduced to clear from the supermarket (labelled 2 portions of your 5). Not sure what dinner/supper is going to be. Probably fish and chips if the OH doesn't get his arse into gear and cook something. I'll get him to buy a massive pickled onion and gherkin. They count.