To think the current advice of eating 10 portions of fruit and veg a day is unrealistic?

[BooseysMom]

I thought it was current advice but I read the attached info in the Women's Health Bible dated 2004. So it seems this is old news. But just how realistic is this? I can just about manage five portions.. but 10?! The first issue is cost. What if you are on a low income and have a family to feed? And how about really fussy eaters? I can just about get my 5 yo to eat half an apple a day! What do fellow mumsnetters think?

Sorry, sounds hideous... Add roasted sweet potato and other roots/ veg and keep in the fridge, adding lightly blanched greens like broccoli or spinach and lemon juice/harissa or similar for an easy delicious lunch. Or just chop up spring greens, lettuce, raw càrrot/peppers/fennel tops/grated beets, add a dollop of houmous and olive tapenade... 😟

Ok here’s another example meal. I wouldn’t usually have salad twice in a day and I prefer to have my raw veg at lunch. But I do like fresh crunch alongside a chilli, so that’s how I’ve done it today.

Assuming I had 3.5-4 servings of veg for lunch, I would need 6 or 7 for dinner.

Chilli
Guacamole (I had to use store bought today but usually if I were to count it as a portion I would make my own smashed avocado. This doesn’t count as it’s too processed and not much actual avocado but my usual serving would be half an avocado) - 1 portion
Aubergine - 2 portions
Tomato - 1 portion
Cucumber - 1 portion
Celery - 1 portion
Pepper - 1 portion

All portions of veg on this plate were weighed or otherwise followed guidelines linked upthread.

Oh duh forgot photos!

I find that veg goes down a lot less painfully if it's a part of a recipe. I had a portion of Hairy Bikers' Lamb Saag, for dinner - a full portion of spinach and onion in there, along with a small amount of other, incidental veg. I made some pilau rice to have with it - token amount of shallot in that - and served some lightly cooked cauliflower on the side, just plain, to dip in all the lovely sauce. So 3 portions of veg in that meal.

Today;

Two large flat mushrooms (with sheep's milk cheese).

A fresh orange/lemon/mint juice.

A good wodge of fresh pineapple whilst chopping two reduced to clear ones up to freeze.

Good handful of olives.

Cherry tomatoes.

Cucumber.

Celery.

Radishes.

Spring onions.

Some multiseed bread.

I'm technically one down, but I suspect that the quantities were large enough to be over the ten.

You count bread as a portion of fruit or veg?

Surely the point in the guidelines is just to try and eat more nutritious foods than processed stuff. Aim to eat veg not more chips. Try to incorporate veg into meals.

10 servings isn't hard, 10 different types is. but you don't need 10 types, just 10 servings. and servings aren't that big. if you adjust your meat/carb consumption to actual serving sizes instead of what looks good, you'll be eating less of those and have more room for fruit and veg.

it isn't a matter of eating 10 different fruits and veg, it's a matter of knowing how much you ate of the 5 or 6 you did eat. You probably regularly eat more than one serving of vegetables in a salad for instance, or soup, or even the randomly scooped piles of 2 veg on your plate.

and count ALL the veg: the random onions and celery and carrots and other veg that are in sauces count.

They also assume you are prioritizing 10 servings of fruits and veg over any kind of packaged snack or high calorie beverage. if you eat the fruit and veg, you will be too full to want that sort of snack, rather than the other way around.

today I had:
asparagus and potato in fritata, banana, orange, bacon and toast.
chili with onions, garlic, peppers, beans, sweetcorn and butternut squash, 3 servings of veg in total ,with tortilla chips
carrot sticks w/hummus
steak, 2 servings of broccoli and a baked potato.

and I just finished ice cream with strawberries cut up on top.

that's 12 servings. tomorrow I might only manage 9 servings, but averaging it out is perfectly fine.

DD finds it easy to hit up.to 15 portions. If I have cereal and dried fruit, then salad at lunch and a veg heavy meal in the evening, not too difficult. If I am too tired to make these then I struggle to get to five.

I'd say I usually get almost 10 per day.

Today :

Homemade apple sauce (
Dates
An apple
Raw carrots
Lentil, tomato, cucumber and potato salad for lunch
Big portions steamed broccoli and carrots for dinner
Strawberries for dessert

I think they are upping it to 10 a day because lots of the fruit and veg in supermarkets do have much lower nutritional value than it used to be.

^^

True.

This is why you need to buy carrots with muck on them and wash and chop them yourselves.

I couldn't eat that much in a day and what appetite I do have I wouldn't waste on fruit and veg I don't like just to make up the numbers
Gimme the chips, the chocolate, the pizza, the creamy cheesy pasta

Wow, no wonder I don’t get 10 portions a day, some of you are eating masses of food every day to reach that.

Good point about portion sizes being different between sexes, heights and so on. At my gym they have a common sense approach to nutrition and say to use your own hand to measure portions. Open palm is the size of the protein element of your meal; thumb sized piece of fat, what can fit inside one cupped hand for a carb, fruit or vegetable portion.
Upping vegetable portions means I am too full to eat much rice and such so for me that’s a good thing.

Those of you saying you 'couldn't eat that much in a day' what do you actually eat?

I only eat two meals a day managedmis. I’ve not eaten yet but when I do I will have 3 HB eggs and some roasted kale (my fave, roasted in vinegar) and some yoghurt or some coconut. I would prob have a snack or two later - cheese or nuts or some chicken skin or pork scratchings 😂. For dinner I have leftovers of a chicken curry. There is cauliflower and salad with it but no way 10 helpings of veg today maybe 5?
I love veg but I wouldn’t snack on them unless it was with a dip - they don’t really hit the spot.

AnAC12UCOinanOCG No. I just listed everything I'd had for the day - I didn't count the cheese as a vegetable, either.

I only eat two meals a day and no snacks. I don't have a sweet tooth so almost have to force myself to eat fruit.

Today I've had a peanut butter sandwich and some grapes. For dinner I'm making paella which will have peppers, peas and some fresh green beans in it but no way will my portion of that contain any more than 2 servings of vegetables. I can't increase my intake without snacking more, which is something I'm not naturally inclined to do. I will probably have a rare glass of orange juice later with dinner as this thread has made me think about it!

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland.. completely agree with you..and no I don't watch Love Island either! I'd rather eat kale every day for the rest of my life (only one portion mind)

Ninkaninus

Your dinner looks lovely, but it looks like a lot of food without many calories considering it's the main meal of the day.

It’s got plenty of calories and lots of nutrients.

Managedmis, you can’t count carrots three times 🤣 if you repeat a source of fruit or vegetable it doesn’t count again

I count duplicate servings. I eat so much veg I get a great variety in the space of a week. I also don’t routinely eat fruit (other than berries) for blood sugar reasons, so extra veg takes the place of fruit. This is healthier for me.

Do people not realise that this is a guideline to getting a better range of foods into you?

Simple overview on why 800g of fruit/veg is recommended.

www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/five-a-day-of-fruit-and-veg-is-good-but-10-is-better/

10 x 80g = 800g = one and three-quarter pounds of fruit and veg.

Ye gods.