Do you find it easy to eat your 5 potions of fruit and veg daily?

[CatteryCatss]

I have a yoghurt bowl for breakfast each day with at least 3 portions of fruit in (usually strawberries, raisins, raspberries and banana chips)

Then I’ll have around two portions of veg with whatever I’m having for dinner e.g. mixed salad and corn on the cob with a burger or green beans and carrots with cheesy pasta.

I think I’d really struggle if I ate my five portions individually, though!

On threads like this you're always much more likely to get responses from either end of the spectrum rather than the middle. 🙂

There will be some people who eat a certain way because it's necessary in order to manage health conditions. That's the case for me. I attach absolutely no moral value to eating certain types of foods or not eating others and would genuinely eat lots of everything, including junk and/or less ideal foods for me, if I could. But I know what happens if I do, so I can't. I have to eat to keep myself at a healthy weight and I have to keep my blood glucose within a reasonable range. Sucks sometimes but it is what it is.

I didn’t even know that and now feel like I’ve been living under a rock now since the 80s 🤣

I'm.straggling to see how a 'relatively healthy' diet has only 1 portion of veg wirh dinner. What do you eat?

My friend eats absolutely none at all so I reassure myself I'm always eating more than he is
By none I mean none, no stray piece of onion, no orange juice, no lettuce on a burger...

I have more of a sweet tooth and find it easy to eat plenty of fruit but we’re a more fussy household when it comes to veg and all have different preferences so I probably don’t eat as much as I like. It does also depend what I’m cooking eg doing a bolognaise is easier to incorporate 3 or 4 portions of veg but sausages and mash isn’t going to be as easy to do more than a couple. Frozen fruit and veg though are great as quick options and means I’m not wasting fresh food so much.

Depending upon how fussy they are, you could cook sliced onions (+/- sliced leeks) and mushrooms and serve in the gravy, frozen peas/green beans and then put savoy cabbage in the mash like colcannon (could also add chopped spring onions in there). Or if you're like DP an absolute heathen you could have frozen sweetcorn with the peas.

Onions, mushrooms, leeks, peas, beans, cabbage = depending upon amount, between 3 and 5 portions.

A few years ago I used to wonder about managing 5 but since cutting out upf and stopping basing my lunch around a sandwich and breakfast around toast I now get 10+ a day very easily.

I now tend to have brocolli sprouts with wild salmon and capers at breakfast plus an apple with peanut butter.

A very large salad for lunch with at least 10 different types (not portions) of veg plus some sort of protein followed by fruit.

50% of my plate at dinner as veg with protein and very small portion of carb, again followed by fruit.

The above diet has given me a flatter tummy than I had in my 20s and I am never hungry due to all the fibre!

@Annoyingsquirrels what do you put in your salads? I run out of ideas sometimes!

Same for me.

Cutting out UPF made me cut out processed bread products, so I no longer have a bagel with butter and marmite for breakfast, and a tuna/egg mayo sandwich for lunch.

I've had to replace that volume with something and the easiest option has been protein and salad/veg/fruit.

My daily diet is now something like:

• blueberries, Greek yoghurt, flaked almonds and honey
• a tuna nicoise salad (with tuna and egg)
• banana and cashew nuts for a snack
• chilli con carne with no rice and a whole chopped avocado on top

I like veg in my rice, so if I’m having curry/chilli I put peas or corn in. It bulks out the carbs, so I eat less, and is a portion of veg.

Yes I think people think a bit of salad on the side or in a sandwich is a portion.

Also people seem to list out lots of fruit, any expert Ive spoken to says really minimise the fruit, theres a lot of bananas and berries being eaten!

Oh yes, just pottering around the house!

No. I'm autistic and struggle massively with sensory issues around food.

Same for me, I use the crowding method where I include so much fruit, veg and colour that there isn’t much space on my plate for junk or food that doesn’t provide a lot of nutrition. Even if I have for example fish and chips, I’ll reduce the chips, add peas, runner beans, sweetcorn etc and add a side salad. For a meatball and spaghetti meal it’s so easy to add a tonne of onions, mushrooms, peppers, olives and tomatoes.

Easy peasy, but I've worked my way up to it over time. I don't count grams per day but number of plants in a day / week. Usually it ends up around 60 - 70 on a weekly basis. Not 80 grams each per day, but a sprinkle here, a spoonful there, across multiple different plant types (fruits, veg, grains, beans, tea, coffee, herbs, spices, etc.) all collectively adds up over time.

This is my typical day in the life.

Breakfast: Black tea or coffee (intermittent faster)

Lunch: Home made soup with cannellini beans, chorizo, cauliflower, onion, red pepper, chicory, cumin, garam masala, garlic, ginger, paprika, topped with a sprinkle of mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, linseed etc.) and a glug of live cultured kefir. This was followed by a few blueberries and a small pear.

Dinner:

Starter: Small salad of rocket, cherry tomatoes, home-grown broccoli sprouts, cucumber, radish, sweetcorn, live cultured beetroot kim chi, live cultured carrot and cabbage kim chi, some home-grown broccoli sprouts, a small bit of avocado, spring onion, a teaspoon of natto, edamame beans, sprouted mung bean, sprouted chickpea and sprouted lentil, mixed herbs, rosemary and with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, spring onion, apple cider vinegar, sumac, black pepper, and mixed sesame seeds.

Main: Yellow lentil dahl with onion, cauliflower, pea, beef tomato, coconut milk, cumin, garam masala, garlic, ginger, paprika, fenugreek, mustard seed, etc. served with a quinoa and buckwheat mix topped with flaked almonds, sumac and a spoonful of kefir.

Other bits: A sheet of nori, a heaped teaspoon of nutritional yeast, a spoonful of mixed spice after meals. Maybe a bit of Lindor chocolate (my one remaining UPF addiction - but down to 5 - 10% total intake).

My top tip is having fruit and vegetables available in multiple formats - fresh, frozen, pickled, etc. so you don't always have to worry about eating up fresh stuff before it goes off.

Oh, and batch cooking - and absolute life saver. I set aside an afternoon and do big one every few weeks - a biodiverse set of curries, tagines, stews, pasta sauces, soups, etc. which I then live on for weeks.

That being said, I am single and don't have a family to please, so appreciate I have more flexibility than most!

It's two totally different approaches, but they do overlap quite nicely.

Eat 5 (or 8, or whatever) handful-sized servings of veg per day + aim to eat 30 different grown things. I usually achieve each of those. I also try as much as possible to 'eat the rainbow'.

I eat lots of veg but I prioritise variety over exact serving sizes of each. That's a way of eating that works well for me - I like focusing on as many different sources as possible because that way I can be fairly certain my body is getting plenty of nutrients, and it stops me becoming overly focused on 'having' to have specific servings of specific things daily/weekly/monthly/whatever. I don't like it when eating becomes a 'thing' that I have to stick to rigidly, so I tend to round off the edges of any regime I might try.

I don't eat much fruit. One portion of berries with breakfast every day, and perhaps another half portion with one of my other meals.

A typical week of 30 different things might be a mix of any of these (I've not listed things we only eat every so often):

Oats
Chia seeds
Flaxseed
Blueberries
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Walnuts
Peanuts
Mixed nuts
Mixed seeds
Sesame seeds
Dates
Prunes
Dark chocolate
Cocoa powder
Mustard powder
Peanut butter (100% nuts)
Protein bread
Ginger
Garlic
Onion
Red onion
Shallots
Leeks
Chillies (fresh or dry)
Tahini
Tandoori spice mix/Garam Masala/curry spices in a curry sauce
Italian spice mix
(I won't list out all the other spices/herbs I have to hand, but I use a wide range)
Fermented red cabbage
Pickled veg
Lentils (various)
Beans (various)
Quinoa
Rice - only a spoonful for me 😭😭😭
Lemon or lime
Olives
Capers
Avocado
Parsley (fresh)
Coriander (fresh)
Thyme (fresh)
Basil (fresh)
Rosemary (fresh)
Potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Celeriac
Celery
Red cabbage
Cabbage
Chard
Courgette
Aubergine
Artichoke
Beetroot
Fennel
Squash
Brussels sprouts (frozen)
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Green beans or other fresh beans
Peas (frozen)
Sweetcorn (tinned)
Carrots
Parsnips
Mushrooms
Spinach
Pepper
Fennel
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Lettuce (although I don't eat much of that anymore)
Apple
Orange
Kiwi
Grapes
Won't list all fruits because the above are the main ones we stick to. In summer we have more variety in fruits.

I don't actually know if oils count. But if they do, I use olive oil, cold pressed rapeseed oil, sesame oil, coconut oil.

Mind you it's just me and DH these days so it's easier as I don't have to accommodate anyone else's likes or dislikes, and we don't need a huge amount either so it's much cheaper than trying to feed a whole household!

As pp have said, if you minimise UPF it leaves plenty of room for veg as the basis of a meal, not just something you might add to the side of your plate as an afterthought. I also cook everything from scratch so that does make it a lot easier to build my meals to be heavy on the veg. But even back when I used to have a fair bit of bread and so on with every meal, it was still easily achievable to have 5 or 6 servings per day.

It just takes a mindset of adding in a bit extra wherever you can!

@BatchCookQueen love your meals all laid out like that, they look delicious!

This was last week toted up:

Rocket
Cherry tomatoes
Cucumber
Radish
Cabbage
Carrot
Beetroot
Edamame
Sweetcorn
Broccoli sprouts
Mung bean sprouts
Lentil sprouts
Chickpea sprouts
Mixed herbs
Rosemary
Sumac
Black garlic
Black pepper
Olive oil
Sesame seeds
Nori
Yeast
Fennel
Fenugreek
Avocado
Natto
Apple cider vinegar
Tea
Coffee
Soy (in milk)
Onion
Pine nuts
Pumpkin seeds
Sunflower seeds
Linseeds
Hemp seeds
Pine nuts
Pear
Blackberries
Blueberries
Miso
Cumin
Coriander
Ginger
Ajwain
Mustard seed
Turmeric
Brown lentil
Yellow lentil
Cannellini beans
Quinoa
Bulgar wheat
Peanut
Lime
Tamarind
Bitter Gourd
Lauki
Chicory
Chlli
Paprika
Cardamon
Coconut
Spinach
Green beans
Chives
Petit pois
Rice
Kelp
Pumpkin

Ohhh I didn't even think of tea or coffee! I drink loads of different teas. I guess wine would count too! Sigh...wine...I don't have it often anymore.

Also use a couple of different vinegars weekly, plus soy sauce and rice vinegar/wine here and there.

Fancy a Korean stew this week!

It's a lot easier now I've started having fruit with my breakfast - an orange juice, banana, pear or plum, and satsuma.

Then there's coleslaw in my sandwich for lunch.

And yesterday we had kumara, potato (yes, I know that doesn't count), swede, brussel sprouts,cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, asparagus, silver beet, and beans with our dinner. Oh, and apple in the apple pie, lol.

Anyway. To bring it back to the 5-a-day, here's what a typical day used to look like for me; I've just listed the fruit/veg elements:

Breakfast: berries, 1 serving

Snack: apple, 1 serving

Lunch: carrot salad, 2 servings

Dinner: tomato sauce, 1 serving, 1/2 roasted aubergine, 1 serving

Or,

Breakfast: apple and berries, 1 serving

Snack: orange, 1 serving

Lunch: salad, 2 servings

Dinner: broccoli, 2 servings

Or,

Breakfast: banana, 1 serving

Snack: cucumber, carrot, peppers, 1 serving

Lunch: peas, 2 servings

Dinner: stir fry veg, 2 servings

Or,

Breakfast: fruit salad, 2 servings

Snack: Celery, 1 serving

Lunch: soup veg/beans, 2 servings

Dinner: courgette, 1 serving

Serving doesn't look or sound like a real word anymore! 😆

You can also make it a bit easier for yourself by eating the same 2 fruits and 3 or 4 veg for a whole week at a time. Then switch out for 2 different fruits and another 3 or 4 veg the next week and so on. Better value because you can buy bigger amounts for less, and you don't have to worry about not being able to use up a wide variety of veg.

I always use frozen berries for my breakfast because it's much cheaper to buy that way, and we only ever eat fresh berries in the summer. I keep frozen peas, Brussels sprouts, green beans, peppers, mushrooms and spinach at all times. Tinned beans, lentils and chickpeas are brilliant.

I don't know what you mean by 'individually' @CatteryCatss

No one tends to eat veg on their own except as part of a meal.

By the way, it's likely your breakfast fruit isn't a whole portion.
A portion is a good handful- like a tea cup- so are you actually eating that for each?

If not, your breakfast fruit is closer to one portion only.

I manage more than 5 most days.

2 fruits with yoghurt, an apple or a banana as a snack during the day, at least 3 portions of veg with a main meal and if I have soup for lunch (homemade) that's another portion.

How does a portion of peas equal 2 servings?

A serving is a decent handful. You don't get 'added points' for more of the same thing. It's best to have more variety.

As I said this was my previous pattern of eating, when I was eating for convenience and ease and also a smaller budget (I was a single parent, working, and studying at university). It's achievable for everyone as it just means adding more of the same until you are used to bigger portions of veg compared to the rest of your food. Then you can easily expand to adding more variety. Having a double portion of peas is still better than having one, and it's a lot better than having none! It's meant to be an example of how easy it is to eat more veg.

I now routinely eat more than double the recommendation, but that's not always doable for someone who's trying to fit veg into the typical style of eating many adhere to.

I also count potatoes as a serving, since they actually are a nutritious vegetable. Just because they didn't make it an official 5-a-day doesn't mean it isn't one!