to think that eating your "Five a Day" is BULLSHIT

[superv1xen]

and probably just so the government can persuade us to shell out on overpriced fruit and veg from supermarkets

the reason i think it is bullshit is because i decided after a christmas of stuffing myself with junk food and drinking most evenings a bit more than usual i was going to detox and since early january i have been making a converted effort to eat at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day. as prior to this i was lucky to manage one or 2. mainly because of the cost but also because i dont like it :o

well after my weeks of diligent healthy eating, i have not noticed ANY difference, womens mags would have you believe you will have "glowing skin" if you eat lots of fruit and veg and all sorts of other wonderful benefits.

but no. i feel and look as shit as i ever have.

or does it take longer than a month to work? :o

You also need to cut out the crap to see the benefits. More veg, less sugar and processed food. It's cutting out the crap which makes me feel much better. If you eat five or more a day, but are still eating a lot of sugary processed food, you're not going to feel any different. If you cut out most sugar and processed food, and replace it with natural foods, then you will notice the difference.

The 5 a day advice has no evidence base behind it - of course fruit and veg are good for you and we should probably all eat more, but the 5 a day thing is just picking a number out of the air.

what othersideofthechannel said.

i really don't see why it's so hard. 'meat and two veg' has been standard for decades. 2 veg with lunch, 2 veg with dinner and 1 piece of fruit, or a good slug of homemade jam, or some juice. BFD.

I still think it goes back to the idea of eat everything and moderation in everything. If people eat a balanced diet with all the food groups in the right proportions to each other, then that's probably the main thing. I.E. if you can only manage 4 fruit/veg, but all the other stuff you eat is proportionate, then that should be fine.

Just because your detox didn't work, it doesn't mean that eating 5+ portions of fruit and veg is bullshit as well.

The benefits are long term. You aren't going to suddenly become gorgeous just because you ate your 5 a day for a month.

What else did you do for your detox anyway? Hopefully, if you were serious about trying you did more than eat fruit and veg. That just wouldn't be enough by itself.

It doesn't have to be expensive either - carrots are cheap for example. Buy in season and locally produced stuff. Then there are cans eg tomatoes - dirty cheap.

And why would the government care if you shelled out for fruit and veg in the supermarket?

supervixen you need to do what we do and hang out at Asda at 4.30pm on a Sunday, everyhting is 10p. Also buy in season, and choose cheap but goes far ie - carrots, turnips, peppers in season, raisins,

if you have a windowsill plant lettuce (cut and come again) -seeds 25p last year in Lidl. Also Lidl do their 49p range, 6 different fruits/veg that changes.

By frozen stuff can be dead cheap,

Fruit - easy to grow berries/and we go out picking loads of blackberries in summer and freeze them.

COoking lentils is ridiculously cheap, also we buy all the discounted squashed tomatoes and make pasta sauce.

Bunch of bananas-89p for 6,
6 chocolate bars - more than that!

And prioritise food over other stuff, I prefer to spend more on fruit and get secondhand clothes from carboots/go to the park instead of to softplay/etc...

and a bottle of wine less will mean at least £3 which on a sunday goes a long way....

And why would the government care if you shelled out for fruit and veg in the supermarket?

more profit for big supermarkets ie tesco's = more money goes to them in tax!

PS I live in a city with one of the lowest up take of fruit of veg and the lowest life expentancy (10 years less than London) and so many fat adults and kids with untold health problems. So it made me think about it.

but supervixen that arguement is rubbish because food isnt taxed.

well some food/....which includes fruit and veg;

Yes but they don't say you have to buy from supermarkets. You could grow your own for example.

Plus there is more money to be made from crappy processed food than from fresh fruit and veg.

also I think its the long-term effects on your skin etc.

you won't look good at 50 or 60 years old if you have eaten crap all your life up to then.

in fact the goverbnment should be encouraging us to smoke more, drink more and eat chippies every night.

(Like the fat kids next door )

Its ok we can all start eating 5,6, 7 pieces of fruit a day and have no teeth (joke by the way)

But I do think it is a pain, you try eating well but could get manky teeth :(

As pointed out by others - veg isn't necessarily expensive (fruit can be)and are definitely cheaper than things like meat, ready meals, junk food. If you step away from the supermarket and go to corner shops, markets, it can be very cheap (and you can also choose the amount that you buy, leading to less weight).

But I'm biased - I freaking love fruit and veg. Couldn't survive without it

The New Scientist says:
The "5-a-day" mantra arose from a World Health Organization document in 2002, and has been backed by many governments. But Francesca Crowe of the University of Oxford, who was involved in the study, says that in general the risk of a fatal heart attack fell by about 4 per cent with every fruit or veg portion, regardless of the total number consumed each day.

full report here

The advice is to eat more veg than fruit too because it has more nutrients, espeically the green stuff. That would also save on the sugar you get from fruit.

I don't understand how you can't afford it. Vegetables are loads cheaper than meat and meat products. You can save a fortune when you switch some of your meals to vegetarian options.

I do agree it is cheap especially now we changed where we shop, but in the past our problem was only shopping one every two weeks, we all no how quickly fruit can go off.

I used to get annoyed at how many times I had to pop the shop to pick more up.But now I go once a week to our big shop and also we pop the shop to get little things like bread and milk if we run out in between.So I pick up my fruit and veg like that.

But I think it can look expensive in comparison to junk food, as in I think you have to but healthy food more often, than a packet of biscuits that can sit in a cupboard for weeks.

YABU. Eating five-a-day is a good start but it won't compensate for any other poor lifestyle choices all by itself. Someone eating 5-a-day, smoking 20-a-day and getting zero exercise, for example, can't expect a healthy glow. If you struggle to make fresh fruit and veg last, frozen versions can be more convenient.

well i don't smoke anymore (havent for a year or so apart from the odd lapse) and do exercise, lots of walking and i swim once a week too. and the rest of my diets pretty healthy i think.

Frozen mixed veg is your friend ( =

Have you got one of those little hand choppy things ?

Just bung a few tablespoons at a time in it, still frozen, whiz, repeat until you have as much as you want, fry a bit of onion and\or garlic in a tiny bit of oil, add veg mince, sweat then cook at a hotter temp to finsih it off, add the teeny minced veg + onion stuff to mash, soups, pasta sauce, cheesey sauce, gravy like stuff etc that is going on your meal.

Is cheap.

And no peeling. (excpet for onion and garlic)

Plus no child whinging at visible pile of veg (other than the three he will eat).

I could have cried when visiting Tescos and saw all the cool and groovey mixed veg selections there are in the UK. I'm stuck with the same old same old minestrone bags, the most choice I get is with\without potato and berlotti beans.

Maybe you just don't have glow-y skin It's probably genetic. But eating more fruit/veg is good for you.

If someone promised you'd look like Claudia Schiffer when she was 25, then yes, it's bullshit, but you shoud have known that.