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

if you been stuffing yourself with junk for say 30 years, then a couple of weeks worth of apples isnt gonna work overnight :)

OK. Cheap meal.

Green lentils, onion, mushrooms, tinned kidney beans, tin of tomatoes, cumin seed, fresh chillies, soy sauce. Simmer the lentils until softish. Chuck onions, chilies, mushrooms and cumin in a pan with a little olive oil and garlic until onions are soft. Add the lentils and then the rest. Let it cook slowly for about an hour. Serve with brown rice and green salad. Very nice, very cheap and quite a few portions of veg.

The myth that fruit and veg is expensive is bullshit.

Fruit and veg is cheap and alot cheaper then junk food.

It is supermarkets that have bumped up the price of fruit and veg not green groucers so i suggest you shop there.

I think supermarket is more because you are paying to have tasteless, perfect sized "pretty" fruit and veg.

For instance a bag of potatos in my green groucers never cost me more then a pound but they come with dirt on. In a supermarket a bag of potatos are usually around £2.00 but they are washed.

It's surely another simplistic message aimed at people who are presumed to be ignorant about the constituent parts of a healthy diet.

Thus telling people they must eat "Five a Day" is assumed to be the easiest way balance out the non-stop troughing of chips, aspartame-enriched drinks, suspiciously cheap cake, economy burgers and chicken-like nuggets.

Personally I think it is utter cock. And I do eat a balanced diet.

i think eating a wide variety of fruit and veg is a fairly proven to be a good idea as it means you get some of the essential vitamins and minerals you body needs. i think the 5 a day thing is almost completely made up. for example i am pretty sure there are no comparative tests between people who eat four a day and people who eat 8 a day....or between people who don't eat any veg for 3 days and then eat loads for a couple of days. like most of these guidelines i think someone sort of makes it up somewhere and then it gets repeated enough and becomes nutritionist gospel. it's the same with calorie intake, exercise recommendations and alcohol intake.

Yes it bullshit. It should be far more. Canada says 6-10/day. I cannot for the life of me imagine what people are eating if they can't even make 5 a day.

ps: you can fit 6 servings of fruit into a 700ml breakfast smoothie totally 400 calories. I can guarantee from personal experience that it keeps hunger at bay until lunchtime as well.

duchesse, for some reason a smoothie only counts as 2 portions - I can't find any logical explanation, so I ignore it.

I do find it odd that 3 dried apricots are considered to be an equivalent portion to 3 tablespoons of spinach

Anyhow, I've been eating very well since christmas, massive amounts and a great variety of veg, pulses and some fruit. I've been constipated on and off for the last 2 weeks

What do people eat if they're not eating 5 a day? Genuine question.

I can't think of a meal that doesn't contain at least 2, so just with 3 meals a day you would have at least 5 and that's if you don't have any fruit at all!

Everyone at home has at least 10 a day (well, not ds2, but he's still mostly on bm)

Based on no scientific evidence whatsoever I think that the best fruit & veg to eat are the ones in season. These will be the healthiest.

This time of year we should be eating things like sprouts, parsnips and leeks. There is very little fruit except for stored apples.

Following the seasons was what our ancestors did. I dont think that we need to eat a wide variety each day but instead we should eat a wide variety through the year.

IMO this is the healthiest and cheapest way.

It depends on the type of smoothie. I make mine from scratch and can guarantee that the 6 portions I line up on the kitchen work surface end up in the smoothie! They don't disappear because I blend them.

My ds went to a festival last summer where they had fruit flavoured bongs and told ds and his mates it was part of their 5 and they believed it!Ds came home thinking I would be mighty impressed

wubbly, I would up your intake of fluids if I were you.

Oh sod government advice. You're all adults, make your own mind up.

If you get to say 20 without knowing what a good diet is, you're just daft anyway.

I'm going to try that duchesse, I can't go on like this.

Anyway, copied this from the NHS site, because I'm a smoothie fan myself

"Juices and smoothies

One 150ml glass of unsweetened 100% fruit or vegetable juice can count as a portion. But only one glass counts, further glasses of juice don?t count toward your total 5 A DAY portions.

One smoothie containing all the edible pulped fruit or vegetable may count as more than one 5 A DAY portion, but this depends on the quantity of fruits or vegetables and/or juice used, as well as how the smoothie has been made.

For a single smoothie to qualify as being two portions, it must contain either:

* at least 80g of one variety of whole fruit and/or vegetable and at least 150ml of a different variety of 100% fruit and/or vegetable juice, or
* at least 80g of one variety of whole fruit and/or vegetable and at least 80g of another variety of whole fruit and/or vegetable.

Smoothies count as a maximum of two of your 5 A DAY, however much you drink.

Sugars are released from fruit when it's juiced or blended, and these sugars can cause damage to teeth. Whole fruits are less likely to cause tooth decay because the sugars are contained within the structure of the fruit."

Like I say, I ignore it.

It's bollocks.
so is the 2 litres of water a day thing

so let me get this straight
if you have a few carrots, a dollop of spinach, a glass of orange, some sweetcorn and an apple that's 5 portions
If you stick em all in a blender, whizz them and then drink the entire result (bleurgh) that's one or 2 portions?
That makes no sense at all!

Sounds like prize bolleaux to me. Make absolutely not a shred of sense.

1 apple+ 1 pear+ 1 generous handful of grapes+ half a papaya + one large slice of pineapple+ 200 ml of orange juice freshly squoze = 2 servings??? Like I said, bolleaux.

And you don't have to drink 2 l of water a day, merely take in 2 l of fluids, much of which comes from food, especially if you're having lots of fruit and veg (in soup?)

Why would anyone not want to eat 5 a day? Much nicer than anything else. Go around the supermarket at the right time and you can get it really cheap, e.g. I got a bag of pears for 29p.

It's bonkers and the whole 'what is a portion' seems ill thought out.

I've just checked again and it's 4 heaped tablespoons of spinach or kale that equals 2 dried figs or a tablespoon of currants

I've been having homemade smoothies for breakfast (mine count as 3 ) and homemade vegetable soup for lunch, a few cups of tea but not enough water.

I used to drink gallons of the stuff so my body is probably missing it.

Detox is bullshit

and whoever said that all fruit and vegetables contained fat soluble vitamins is a tad misguided....

YANBU. It is bull, because they are making out that all "portions" of veg and fruit are equal, when they are not. A lettuce dug straight from the garden and eaten within an hour contains a whole load more nutrients that one stuck in a bag under a fake atmosphere and kept for a month. Same goes for pretty much all veg.

And why aren't potatoes counted? New potatoes eaten soon after they are dug are a good source of nutrients (including vitamin C).

the vitamin c content also depends on the soil quality

i literally can not afford to buy any more, my new regime has already stretched the food budget to breaking point

Yes of course it did!

At your local supermarket:

1. Take a basket.
2. Fill with 5 or 6 very large white cabbages
3. Haul to wine aisle.
4. Place favourite £3-4 bottle of wine.
5. You are now looking at approximately same cost of veg and wine.