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

[SplinterSplit]

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.

I think if you have a big mixed salad with one meal a day and two or thre vegetables with or in your other meal you only need a couple of pieces of fruit to get there without any problems. After a while you get to really enjoy the veg & salad . even if you didn't to begin with.

[lovely thread and don’t want to derail, but worth some people being aware that peppers and tomatoes are I think in the nightshade family and eating them daily can cause some people issues with inflammation, aches etc]

I do a large fruit salad and keep it in the fridge. Watermelon, raspberries, pineapple, apple and blood orange. So that’s 5. I also make soup with peppers, tomatoes, onion, carrots and potatoes. Another 5.

I don’t think a bowl of soup is five portions just because it has five different ingredients. I think that’s where some of the confusion lies and why it’s not that easy

Agree with the last post, I tried to mention it myself. It's not a simple as having a vegetable soup and thinking every ingredient constitutes one portion.

I bought James Wong's 10 a day book a few weeks ago and have been doing it ever since. It's not that hard once you get used to a few things.

The things I find easiest are making his fruit compote and eating it with unsweetened soya yoghurt for puddings, substituting fruit or veg for the water content in many recipes (his pumpkin polenta mash is divine), using gram flour and just chucking in more veg to whatever I'm making using the frozen stuff. No wastage, easy peasy.

You definitely don't have to eat 10 different types of fruit or veg for them to count. Juices/smoothies and pulses, however, do only count as 1 portion each as they are less nutritionally balanced. It's better to eat a wide variety of stuff to get the maximum benefits, but 160g of tomatoes is still 2 portions for example.

If you want to take it even further, I can recommend James' previous book on eating better. For example, leaving your cut/diced onions for 10 minutes before cooking ups their phytonutrient content by a significant margin. Where possible, choose the darkest f&v for best nutritional value (purple seems to be the very best in general, purple spuds, purple broccoli, red cabbage etc.). Dairy may inhibit anthocyanin absorption, so eat berries with Alpro instead of yoghurt... Fascinating stuff!

Pretty easy - based on a portion being 80g:

Breakfast - an apple with whatever you normally have

Banana mid morning

Lunch - salad including 3 portions (so for example 40g each of 6 of the following) peppers / tomatoes / cucumber / salad leaves / sweetcorn / carrot / radish / lentils / beans / butternut squash) plus whatever else you want.

Dinner - stir fry - 80g each of onions, beansprouts, peppers, spinach and broccoli plus noodles/rice and some protein and sauce.

Curry - 80g each of butternut squash, cauliflower, spinach, lentils, chopped toms and curry spices.

Chilli - kidney beans, lentils, onions, peppers, chopped toms served with rice.

Veg bake - 80g each of carrots, cauliflower, sweetcorn, broccoli, butternut squash in a cheesey sauce served with sausages or whatever.

Veg tray bake - aubergine, courgette, peppers, onion, baby tomatoes drizzled with olive oil, garlic and some harissa seasoning - serve with chicken / lamb.

I tried this a while back.

Taking portion sizes into account, I found that 10 portions of F & V a day was do-able.

However, to have 10 full portions, I was pretty much having to each nothing but fruit and veg all day long, because 10 full portions is a lot of food. Hard to do if you want to eat meat and carbs too, easier if you are a vegetarian who is happy to have cauliflower rice/courgette noodles etc.

I also found it expensive to keep up the variety. I appreciate there are cheaper fruit and veg out there, but a varied and pleasant 10 a day diet means including lots of the more expensive fruit and veg like berries etc too.

I would think that most people who are eating "normally" but just adding an extra handful of fruit to their porridge or extra portions of veg to their meals, or think that a lunchtime salad counts for 4/5 portions are probably not eating 10 full portions, unless they are eating very large meals indeed!

...think that a lunchtime salad counts for 4/5 portions are probably not eating 10 full portions, unless they are eating very large meals indeed!

This is 7 full portions of vegetables.

It is not a very large meal! That's a small plate.

If you've really got 7 portions (560g) of vegetables on that plate, then yes, that's a large meal.

Forget the NHS simpification guidelines - WHO say you need 80g per vegetable or fruit to be a portion, so 7 portions is 560g whatever fruit or veg you choose, and 560g is a very large portion.

TBF, that pic doesn't look like 560g, although it's hard to get an accurate idea of sizing from the photo. But if its not 560g, then its not 7 portions. NHS guidelines re "half a pepper" etc are not accurate, just a simple (and inaccurate) approximation, and don't override the weight requirement.

I don't think I've ever eaten a salad that weighed over half a kilo, although I appreciate the chick peas weigh heavier for size than lettuce/cucumber etc.

The most important thing is that actually you should focus on veg rather than fruit (berries excepted). The majority of your intake should be vegetables.

I believe that for the purposes of this guideline a portion is about the size that you can fit in your hand, so yes, I could easily do 10 a day, and I usually do. Especially when I am seriously low carbing.

I don’t eat breakfast but an easy way to get one portion in is yogurt or porridge with berries. 1 handful of berries is one portion. I just eat my berries on their own a few times a week instead to get the benefits from them.

Lunch is often a big salad stuffed with whatever vegetables I have to hand, plus some protein. For example one handful peppers, one handful celery, one handful tomatoes, one handful cucumber, two handfuls lettuce, one handful spinach leaves. I try to use lots of different veg to get a good mix, things like beetroot, radishes, mushrooms,, sugar snap peas, mange tout, etc. I just put it in there raw.

Dinner will be curry or chilli or pasta sauce or a roast chicken or whatever. I will have a big portion (at least 4 handfuls) of vegetables with it, whatever goes with the dinner. Roasted cauliflower and broccoli with the curry, avocado, tomato, cucumber and lemon salad with the chilli, fried courgette and chilli with the pasta sauce, carrots and peas with the chicken, etc etc. In the summer we often eat substantial salads for dinner as well, which are mostly based on veg and maybe some legumes as well.

All it takes is switching your thinking and meal planning so that vegetables are the main component, rather than just a thing you put on the side to fill out the meal.

Nink your food sounds delicious!

I tend to agree with others about the weight thing - I think the study that recommend 10 a day was based on an overall weight of vegetables consumed that provided optimum health benefits rather than people reporting they have 10 portions of veg. This weight was then divided by 80g portions to give the 10 a day message. If you just generally eat lots of f&v that is great but if you are trying to achieve the health benefits described in those studies then it makes sense to weigh your f&v at least to start off with. I cant find the page where I read that info but the NHS website also talks in terms of weight nhs

The thing is its not "10" fruit and veg its 800g of fruit and veg a day to get the health benefits. 800g of fruit and veg is generally a jolly big amount of food, whilst equally often not containing enough calories, protein or fat to sustain most people. So you need to eat the best part of a kilo of F&V and also fit in your protein, your carbs, your fats, your extra calories etc. It's tricky to do.

I would say possible with good planning, balancing up which veg contain which nutrients , fat, protein etc, and planning your diet accordingly. And you'd likely be too full to eat much that wasn't part of your F&V allowance. It's probably far easier to do on a vegetarian or mostly vegetarian diet.

Chucking a couple of handfuls of berries on your porridge and eating a portion of salad for lunch, or adding an extra veg to your dinner is always going to be a good thing to do, but its not the same as eating 800g of fruit and veg daily whilst maintaining all your nutritional and calorific needs day in, day out!

but its not the same as eating 800g of fruit and veg daily whilst maintaining all your nutritional and calorific needs day in, day out!

Yes, this is what I've found. Doable if you're also aiming to cut calories and lose weight. Impossible for me personally to consume enough calories if eating 800g of fruit and veg a day.

Not a good day today. Only 6

B - banana and blueberries with yog (2)

Lunch - steak sandwich with 80g rocket, baby toms, cucumber and carrot (4) I actually weighed it rather than rough-eyes it and found my large carrots were actually more than 80g

Dinner - dinner is going to bad, will have noodles in waggas so probably won't even be a portion!

I think having the set 10 F &V or 800g makes you focus too much on that and lose sight of having a balanced, healthy diet.

OP, you say you fell if the wagon so you must have felt you were restricting yourself in some way and weren't satisfied enough with what you were eating.

If you just step back from it a bit and consider having fruit/veg at each meal (watch the fruit though as it does have a lot of calories from the sugar, especially juices and smoothies) with good protein and healthy fats (to keep you full) and concentrate on getting your carbs in the form of complex carbs or low GI eg whole grains, root veg then you'll naturally lose weight and feel healthier and you'll find it is sustainable long term.

Consider 50% of each meal to be made up from veg and do this by finding new recipes/ways of cooking eg cauliflower rice instead of regular rice

I think it's doable... Just turn veggie and use vegetables instead of meat.
Example:
We have frozen berries with plain yogurt and a small amount of oats for breakfast.
Snack is Banana or Orange (after that it's almonds)
Lunch is leftover dinner or salad based veg. (You can literary turn any veg into a tasty salad!!!)
Dinner: veggie lasagne, veggie rice veggie curry, ....

You don’t need to eat carbs other than veg. Pasta, bread, rice, potatoes, etc can easily be jettisoned altogether or severely restricted and replaced with carb context in other veg, which will be plenty to meet requirements.

Handful of nuts and seeds, good amount of protein, lots of healthy fats from veg and animal sources and you would have no problem at all getting your full range of nutrients and you would certainly be able to hit your required calorie intake.

So today I have eaten:
early - banana
snacks - orange, two avocados, two big handfuls of grapes
lunch - sandwiches with eight cherry toms and about half a bag of rocket
I make that eight including two doubles (don't care!)
Just need to eat two veg for dinner, probs chicken stir fry with peppers and cabbage, should do it.

Apart from leafy veg, an 80g serve actually quite small. I tend to weigh my food out of habit and 80g is only 4 medium strawberries, 4 medium cup mushrooms, 4 asparagus spears, 7 baby plum tomatoes, 1/3 average sized courgette, three large florets of broccoli, half an avocado or 1/3 cup of peas. An average size conference pear is usually 150g or so, ditto for a large banana.

I usually hit 10 a day without much effort - banana, milk and shredded wheat for breakfast; pear and two satsumas for snacks; takeaway salad for lunch (pretty easy to hit 500g from a place like Tossed), some kind of protein and 3 vege sides for dinner. You do need to like salad though, I suspect!

I usually also have a bit of chocolate, a latte maybe some nuts etc and so have no problems with adequate calories despite doing HIIT classes three times a week.

When I'm feeling well in myself, I could probably manage 10, but it would probably mean neglecting other food groups in the longer term. It's expensive too.

I tried to get 5 weighed out portions of veg in my dinner today and my plate was literally overflowing, did peas blended with some mirin, chilli and onion, fried shallots and mushrooms, steamed pretty much a whole bag of kale for dp and I to share and a whole packet of asparagus, plus 100g each sweet potato fries. Most of it was on offer or from Lidl but prob expensive. I think I would have enjoyed it more if there had been fewer veg, it created chaos in the kitchen and I was still hungry

Feeling inspired by this thread so going to take some salad veg into work for my lunch and see if I can increase my fruit and veg intake!

So far so good.

Banana and 80g blueberries with Greek yog (2)

One of those steam pot tuna and couscous things - with 80g spinach, 80g edemamae beans, half an avo (which turned out to be almost exactly 80g) and 8 baby tomatoes. (4)

Dinner is planned to be pasta with rocket (yeah I know it’s basically the whole bag) and cucumber and carrot sticks are ready for a snack later.

So that will be 9 which is pretty ok.

I think I got ten yesterday?... though I'm not sure because I don't like weighing my food!

Mixed frozen berries and a banana in porridge

Tuna salad for lunch (mixed bag of salad leaves and beetroot, with tuna and olive oil), and an orange

Mid-afternoon - a cereal bar (or 2....3...4... (jokes - but it was more than one)...!), and some random teaspoons of almond butter

For dinner - a biggg bowl of chopped baked sweet potatoes, chickpeas, bell peppers, onion, all mixed with avocado, with Halo Top (cinnamon!) ice cream for pud. Yum!

To get 10 full portions I find I’m chomping through vegetation for ages, like a cow. As well as bloating my stomach and making my jaws ache it’s really boring and unsatisfying.
I can’t believe humans are meant to eat this massive quantity of anything every day.