10 fruit & veg a day - is it really possible long term?

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I'm mulling over a diet change as I've 2 stone a bit of weight to lose. We're all familiar with the '5 a day' rule but the nhs says 10 would be better.. Could you, do you, eat 10 portions of fruit/veg a day? What would your daily diet look like breakfast/lunch & dinner? I'm interested to hear what others think? I bet it'd make a massive difference to my aches & pains & how I feel overall. I think I'd find it very hard though. Last time I tried a major diet change I lasted 3 months & fell off the wagon.

They say here to have half the plate vegetables at dinner and then a quarter each for protein and carbs though I can't be arsed to cook two side dishes so it's either veggies or carbs for us so usually veggies.

I think 10 fruit or veg sorts is not the same as 10 portions also it is expensive
Yes, a portion for example of salad is almost as much as an entire small pre-prepared supermarket rocket bag for example. Cooked spinach is 4 heaped tablespoons which I am mindful of what a portion is an huge pile of fresh.

This website is useful as it has photos.
www.goodtoknow.co.uk/wellbeing/health/five-a-day-portion-sizes-in-pics-63967

berries on porridge it is not the right season for berries blueberries even in Aldi are £1.50 for about 125g about 1.5 portions or 5 boxes per week is £7.50 just for 1 person

I think a lot of people would use frozen which are way cheaper. I pick and flat-freeze blackberries in season before bagging and using for breakfast, but lets not get into the whole 'poor people should pick blackberries' debate

I use a lot of frozen vegetables as well, cheaper, convenient and no waste.

The new bags of frozen veg in Tescos (black ones) have made it much easier for us to get in our veg portions.
They're really not expensive either.

They do sliced mixed peppers, sliced mushrooms, butternut squash, mixed beans and a couple of others.

Really easy to add into your cooking and they've all been nice so far.

berries on porridge it is not the right season for berries blueberries even in Aldi are £1.50 for about 125g about 1.5 portions or 5 boxes per week is £7.50 just for 1 person

Or you could have cheaper fruit like apple, bananas or dried fruit, which also counts. Lets not get into the whole 'healthy eating, as evidenced by the high cost of blueberries, is too expensive' debate either

I'm going slightly off track here but I lost weight with slimming world and I still follow their rule of 1/3rd of the plate being 'speed' (non starchy) fruit or veg. I find that I easily reach 10 a day that way without having to count. Examples are roasted carrots instead of roast potatoes, cauliflower rice instead of rice, and lettuce leaves instead of tortilla wraps. You just have to remember to replace part of your meal with the fruit or veg, not just add to it otherwise it's just extra calories.

Yes but you have to make an effort and you won't lose weight if you go all out for fruit (as I do).

Breakfast: cereal or toast with banana and glass of juice
Lunch: sandwich including big handful of rocket and several slices of cucumber. Handful of cherry Toms. Grapes. Orange.
Dinner: pasta with tomato sauce made with canned tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, leeks, pepper. Serve with green veg eg broccoli. Assuming two-three portions in the pasta sauce you're easily there.

Also a really nice breakfast that is quick and easy to do..

Mushrooms, peppers and baked beans on a slice of toast. Clove of garlic or two makes it nicer. Make sure you have enough of each and it's three portions of your five a day. It's nice because it's a really filling meal and doesn't taste 'healthy'.

Also adding BBQ seasoning to baked beans makes them much tastier! Might not make them healthier but it makes you want to eat more of them.

Today

Blueberries and grapes for snack

Carrot, kale and leek soup
Pear

Banana at snack

Roast chicken, mashed potato, broccoli, cauliflower and peas

I can do 800g I think but not 10 different ones. I only have time to food shop once a week so use quite a few frozen vegetables and tinned pulses to avoid food waste. Usually manage 3 different fruits and 4 different veg, I'm sure if do much better if I didn't gate salad!

The lunch I have most days is 7 portions of vegetables:

● 1/2 can of chickpeas, blitzed
(1 portion of veg)
● 2 different coloured peppers, sliced
(0.5 pepper = 1 portion. 4 portions)
● 3 full sticks of celery, halved
(1.5 celery sticks = 1 portion. 2 portions)

Total: 7 vegetable portions.

Then 3 more full portions for dinner and that's 10 vegetable portions. I could well add in 2 additional portions of fruit during the day.

*<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Documents/Downloads/5ADAY_portion_guide.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiOsY70srHhAhWAQRUIHX2YA6UQFjAMegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw0WEwzrl4MDQPQJzd1x5ZVh" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">NHS 5 a day portion sizes

I just can't eat like this.
I have 1 portion of greens, 1 portion of fruit, and 2-3 more servings mostly from veg, beans or pulses a day (plus a glass of juice here or there). I am very small so don't need that many calories. I used to have problems with anaemia, vitamin D and calcium deficiencies, so need to make space for plenty of calcium and iron rich foods, as well as enough fats, proteins etc. I just simply do not have the space for that much veg (and I love my veg) and I find more than 1-2 pieces of fruit just makes me fat and my blood sugar more temperamental.

Typically I would have-
Breakfast- yoghurt, piece of fruit and a small handful of nuts or 1 slice of toast and peanut butter with 1/2 a grapefruit or a glass of juice (1 serving)
Lunch- leftover tuna pasta with onions and sweet corn in it or oatcakes with laughing cow and cucumber (1-2 servings)
Snack- slice of cheddar or a hard boiled egg, or a tbsp of coleslaw rolled in a couple of slices of ham or chicken (0.5 servings maybe)
Dinner- sausages, mash, cabbage and onion gravy (1.5 servings) or cottage pie made with carrots, celery and onions (1.5 servings).
Snack- yoghurt or a fun size chocolate bar, not every day though, or maybe a few cherry tomatoes, a satsuma or a bit of leftover veg from dinner (0.5 servings)

I did a 10 a day challenge on MN 2 years ago. It was pretty hard - it was fairly easy to get to 8ish but I sometimes found I was eating extra snacks just to get the last couple in. The portion sizes for some things are big - salad leaves especially because they are so light. It is 2/3 of a punnet of blueberries, 2/3 of a tin of sweetcorn, I think two sticks of celery - it ends up being a lot. The problem is I did also want to eat some other types of food and that amount of fruit and veg left me pretty full.

have a look at james wong's new book.
it makes 10 a day not scary.

It's not an exam though - no-one is ticking off whether your food is the right portion size etc.

I could be completely wrong, but I don't regard the 10 fruits and veg thing in the same proportions of the 5 a day. For me, it's much more about getting a wide variety of lots of different coloured foods/F&V in order to get a good rounded intake of a variety of vitamins and minerals.

Some days are easier than others - if I'm succumbing to a meal deal for lunch, I'll be lucky to get 1 portion in, and that will be if I've remembered to bring some fruit into work with me.

For those thinking about the 10 a Day book - the author has tweeted some of the recipes so you can see what they're like:

twitter.com/search?q=%2310ADay%20%40botanygeek&src=typd

In the name of science, have just weighed my lunch (almost all frozen stuff that I could shove in the oven for half an hour).

1 medium tomato - 80g
3 frozen cauliflower hash browns - 120g
1 small broccoli & tomato quiche - about 25% of the 170g quiche so 42.5 g

So that'd be about 3 portions of veg for what I thought was quite a junk food type lunch. If I'd added another tomato or some cucumber/carrot it'd be 4.

TBH - it sounds like while 10 is best you still get a lot of benefit for each extra portion of veg/fruit you manage to add to your diet: www.imperial.ac.uk/news/177778/eating-more-fruits-vegetables-prevent-millions/

It could be an idea to cast the net wider? I don't like fruit that much but I do like nuts and pulses. I have read somewhere that only one serving of pulses a day "counts" towards your total I try to aim for maximum variety, which doesn't necessarily equal weight loss or "healthy" food -think about salted nuts and wasabi peas.

More ideas...

Miso soup (tahini, tofu cubes, spinach, seaweed) with a side of roast sweet potato
Japanese style salads -wakame, green leafy veg with sesame seeds dressings
Seeds as a snack
Laverbread
Dhal - I have very simple dhals as a side dish, for example 100 gr of boiled red lentils seasoned to taste.
Combinations of pulses and rice - brown lentils and white rice, Japanese style rice with edamame etc. These are nutritionally complete.
Eastern European style salads - gherkins, beetroot, pickled red cabbage
Sauerkraut
Yellow split peas wintry soups with cubes of gammon and leeks, carrot, swede, celeriac
Spanish style chickpea and beans stews
Rosti using root veg rather than potato. If you add bacon and an egg I will eat pretty much anything
Trays of roasted veg - med style or wintry style.
Root vegetable puree as a side - turnips boiled in half milk and half water are sweet and delicious.
Indian style veggie dishes - so many wonderful ways of cooking cauliflowers, spinach, aubergines. Easy to top up with chillies and other veg and again pulses
Hummus, easy to flavour with other veg
Obvious stuff like baked beans but also if you live in a cosmopolitan place more out there stuff like artichokes and okra.

As I rule I try to think of a meal as protein plus veg. So many veggies are carb heavy anyway. Also pulses can give you starch, fibre and protein. Make your food work harder for you in terms of what nutrients you get it of it!

I prefer several smaller portions to fewer larger ones. I couldn't eat half a crown of broccoli like suggested upthread. Yes it takes time and planning!

If you have the 10 a Day book, he suggests for things like sausage and mash, or cottage pie, getting a portion of veg in the mash by having it half potato half celeriac or swede or carrot or something instead of just potato - seeing as you can't count potato.

Makes your meal work harder for you.

Green smoothies is your way forward op. You can whizz up 5 portions just for breakfast.
Today I had spinach apple celery avocado and grapes. About 1/3 of it spinach, with some hemp protein in it . It kept me full till lunchtime.

A portion of fruit or veg is 80g.
That's a banana, or 2 satsumas, or an apple, or 3-4 plums, 5-6 damsons, 2 kiwis etc..

I sometimes wonder if people who claim to eat 10 a day easily are actually counting each different veg that passes their lips as a separate portion. 8 Florets of cauli or broccoli is almost a plateful (1 portion). 4 tablespoons of cooked shredded cabbage (1 portion).
I think that you need to be snacking a portion of veg between every meal to get anywhere near 10.
It's doable, but it can't be easy, just getting the volume down is difficult. (I manage maybe 1 day a week)

hink you need to think about adding veg to everything, so instead of a shepherd's pie being mince, onion and potato either swap the mashed potato for mashed vag or do 1/2 potato and

I will pass on the mashed vag in my shepherds pie please 😂

...if it's in a smoothie it counts as one portion, even if that smoothie had 4 portions in it originally, because of the impact of the high sheer on the fibre and nutrients.

I have been trying to achieve this plus 2L of water a day since February.

Today

Breakfast
Porridge with frozen cherries and blackberries (2)
Mid morning
Grapes and apple (2)
Lunch
Cajun chicken breast, rocket. pepper, cherry tomatoes, cucumber yogurt with lemon (3)
Toasted pitta
Mid afternoon
Strawberries and blackberries (1) chocolate buttons
Dinner
Prawn linguine with rocket, cherry tomato and Parmesan salad (2)

I'm definitely feeling better for it but took a few weeks for my stomach to adjust

8 florets of cauliflower or broccoli is well over 1 portion unless the florets are tiny. I'd probably cut a normal supermarket broccoli head into about 8 florets and that's 300 g or 4 portions. An average banana is probably at least 2 portions too.

Have been weighing a few veg since getting the book and surprising myself about what is a portion.

Most peppers are 160g - 2 portions. And they are all lighter than my average apple.

I'd agree 8 florets of cauliflower would have to be v tiny to be a portion.

Spinach is great when cooked as it disappeared. I did a spinach tart with 500g and 2 eggs. Just over 3 portions each served between 2, plus extra as side dishes - OK if you are a purist it should be 10 different veg but that is super hard to do and I just aim for 10 and there is variety from day to day.

Going off the NHS guidelines, we all do in this family. But we all like our veg and really love our fruit. The kids don't have fruit juice or smoothies though. Bloody expensive though!