to ask if anyone will actually do this 7 veg a day thing

[ilikeyourface]

God I struggle with five. I have about one bannana every other week and thats it. I havent had a vegtable since about 2003. If anyone will actaully do this, please tell me how. It seems impossible.

I dont know I guess it depends on how many portions are in cadburys fruit & nut bar?

although if your 5 bean chilli had tomatoes, onions, puree, etc then they count towards the 5 7 a day too

OH and I are trying it and last night had spaghetti and a sauce with masses of tomatoes and veg, and stuffed peppers, but the kids wouldn't touch it.

However they will eat masses of veg on pizzas and in a sausage casserole.

I have had a banana, apple, satsuma, spinach and tomato in a pasta sauce today. So today has been pretty impressive for me!
I am consciously trying to eat healthier though, dd does but I need to more.

Ah yes, i put veg in too so it's still healthy, just not as healthy as I thought. I always forget that tinned toms count.

Sorry the spaghetti sauce was tomatoes, garlic, onion, mushrooms, courgette, grated carrot, celery, fresh basil.

The red peppers were stuffed with chopped broccoli, tomatoes and more mushrooms.

To me that's quite 'adult food'.

It's just a way of getting you to eat more veg, simplified based on what the government think is realistically achievable - I believe in many other European counties it's always been 7 and in japan 10 (but- smaller portions than ours) so the idea is, just eat loads of veg and a bit of fruit.

If you eat a bag of clementines today (ooo December I love you) or a Punet of strawberries (hello summer) or whatever you don't need to worry about eating 6 more on top every single day- just make sure you get a variety and most meals are based around veg.

The 5 a day thing is basically that you should eat 400-500g of fruit and veg a day made up of at least 5 different things, so roughly 80-100g of each. I assume that 7 a day means this should be raised to around 700g of fruit and vag a day? At that quantity frankly, I will need to cut down on other stuff to eat the extra fruit and veg but maybe that's the point?
Thinking of it this way does help you work out if you are meeting the target. So for example a Spag Bol may contain 4 or 5 different veg but not in the quantities required for it to make up 4 or 5 portions. Both variety and quantity are important.

I don't have fruit juice or dried fruit either, although the kids do.

Strawberries and blueberries with yogurt and dried fruit for breakfast, chicken salad (cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes) for lunch, apple pm snack and tuna steak with spinach, turnip and carrots for dinner. That's 10 portions although the dried fruit was probably only a half portion if that. I would be surprised if I don't have at least 7 most days

Ds3 (7) croissant, fresh orange juice and strawberries for breakfast, tuna and sweet corn wrap, cucumber, an orange and two jaffacakes for lunch and beef stew with potatoes, carrots and turnip for dinner. So 7 portions also I'm sure he had at least 2 portions of carrots and there were onions in the stew so probably more.

I don't hold out too much hope for the rest of the family.

I think people are really overestimating how much veg they put in things. Yes, you might put mushrooms, onions, carret, celery, etc in a spag bol sauce. But if that spag bol is to eat a family of four, you would need to include 12 sticks of celery, 56 button mushrooms(!), 6 carrots and god knows how many onions (can't see that info!) to each get one portion of each veg. If you have blueberries with your porridge or yoghurt in the morning, you need 4 heaped tablespoons to get one portion- probably about half a punnet. Pictures are here if you want to see portion sizes.

at fruit and vag.

I do already. Not everyday but probably most. Being vegetarian really helps - most of our meals are veg-based, i.e. tonight was lentil slice with mashed white and sweet potatoes with carrots and peas so that's 4. I had veg soup for lunch so another 2 and mixed berries on my muesli at breakfast. I'd usually have more fruit than that but we didn't have any in.
Although the peas and mixed berries were frozen which I understand don't count in the new guidelines?

I try not to get worked up at the quantity but make sure I add fruit or veg to a meal if possible and snack on them too. Some days are better than others. So for breakfast I had a kiwi and and orange along side a slice of peanut butter on toast. Lunch was very light on veg, just had a cream cheese and cucumber sandwich. Dinner is a baked sweet potato topped with vegetable bean chilli. It contains peppers, kidney beans, black beans, onions and tomatoes. I'm guessing I've probably managed 5 today in all if I were to weight it out, but probably not 7.

its 1 whole onion as a portion

Two medium onions (2portions), 1 courgette (2 portions), a pepper (1 portion?), half an aubergine (one and a half portions), 2 cartons of passata (2?) and a tablespoon of tomato purée (one). That is nine and a half and would feed three people as a pasta sauce.

Thanks powerhoop! So, in a spag bol sauce, for 5 portions of veg each for a family of 4 (recommended is 2 fruit, 5 veg according to some sources), you need to include:
4 medium tomatoes (fair enough)
4 whole onions
12 sticks of celery
Roughly 6 carrots
56 button mushrooms.

Almond cake- nine and a half between the 3 portions, so just over 3 each. That's if you're allowed to count the passata and puree seperately, as they both come from the same veg.

Does sweet potato count as a veg, or a starch like potatoes? Hope it does!

I'm veggie so I eat more than that a day already.

What about garlic and fresh herbs like basil? Do they count a bit? We shove loads of garlic in everything.

Easily. My DDS and dh easily eat 10 a day.

After looking at those pictures of portion sizes linked above, I want to change my plea. If I ate 7 portions that size I'd have no space for chocolate explode.

Sweet potato counts! I expect garlic and herbs count a bit - you'd have to eat tons to make it up to a portion though.

Yes we def already do in our family. Probably 10. Where I come from it was always 'five PLUS a day' ie five was the bare minimum. So I'd always aim for at least five not including fruit. I don't eat a lot of starch so use vege to bulk out meals.