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 forgot to attach again!

i always think of chickpeas and lentils as protein rather than veg.

I have 7 a day (each different and at least one portion in serving size), up to 10 if dinner has been particularly veg heavy, but I don’t have 10 different varieties every day. I spend a fortune on eating a fresh healthy and varied diet, and think buying another 21 portions of fruit/veg a week (or 42 including husband) would add considerably to shopping costs!

If chickpeas are a vegetable then a poppadum is a vegetable 👍🏻

Coffee counts, right? Right? It is made from coffee BEANS, isn't it?

I'm vegan and that would be a normal diet for me but I can see that if you're eating a lot of dairy and meat it might be difficult to achieve. Perhaps adding salads to lunch and your evening meal would help.

Yes I can do it easily. I replace bread/pasta/rice etc with vegetables anyway, so it’s easily doable for me. But even if I didn’t do that it would still be perfectly achievable. The whole point is you’re not supposed to be eating that veg in addition to the typical western diet - Your diet is supposed to be based primarily on vegetables, with meat and protein next, and processed foods only in small quantities.

I just weighted a single tomato to see, because I nrver went with 80g portion but the ones like x tablespoons, 1 yyy etc.
Single asda salad tomato is 76g so 1 portion. If you look at it like that, 5 portions really isn't that much. Add to it 2 inch cucumber, I don't know how big is cereal bowl so I do 3 handfuls of mixed salad like lettuce, spinach, rocket, half a pepper, 3 tablespoons of carrot (whoever thought that measurement is smart🙄), bit of a dressing.
And apple as a snack later.
That's 6 right there. 1 salad and an apple.

If I am doing it wrong it's BBC's fault.

Omelette for breakfast and a bit of fruit. Veg soup for lunch and some olives. Bit of apple with some cheese. Veg curry for tea and Dahl....or some meat but with broccoli sweet potato some hm coleslaw....

I think there are some days when I probably eat that or get close, eg if I have a smoothie for breakfast, salad for lunch and veggie stir fry for dinner.

Unfortunately there’s also days when I have toast or cereal for breakfast, a sandwich and a packet of crisps for lunch and fish and chips for dinner and the only fruit is in the tomato ketchup. And that diet is probably quite common on a daily basis for loads of people.

@PetrichorRain OK my omelette def had at leat 3.5 inches courgette, 1 large tomato, 100g bag of spinach (because it reduces to nothing) and 3 chestnut mushrooms. So I suppose the courgette and spinach were full portions and the tomato and mushrooms were less? I don't know. Like I said, I wasn't consciously trying to eat 10 portions I just like to pack my meals full of veg. I'm pretty sure the veg meal I had later in the day (it was veggie sausages with a serving courgettes, broccoli and peas) had full portions. There was so much veg I had to eat it in 2 sittings as it wouldn't all fit on my plate. I'm addicted to veg and feel ill if I don't eat loads of it.

I have between 5 and 10 per day.

Today wasn’t great, lunch was salad pizza and chips so about 2 and then tea was a big stirfry with mash so about 3.

Friday was more typical. A green juice 1, a banana and peanut butter bagel 1, big mixed salad with leftover cauliflower and beans 4, an apple 1 and then mash, cauli, onions, yellow pepper and baked beans another 3. Total 10.

I do eat a plant based diet though. How much you can fit in depends on what else you are eating.

I understand that for people who have grown up and spent their lives eating close to none a day, that it can seem realistic, but it really isn't!
People just need to change the way that they look at their eating habits.
Most people I know who've claimed it to be unrealistic have fridges full of meat and cheese- which are far more expensive than veg!
Two portions with each more and a couple of fruit snacks and you're well on your way- also remember that beans count as a portion (but only as one per day even if you eat two different kinds) as well as sweet potatoes!

@Ninkaninus absolute agree with that. I still have rice and pasta, but just smallest portions and it's topped up with various veg instead. Also abs love summer. Basically live on bbq meat and veg. No need for bread or potatoes. It doesn't give you that heavy feeling after.

Also, make frozen veg your best friend and it's much cheaper and less wasteful!

7:20 pm and I haven't eaten one portion yet and I doubt I will today. I don't think I could even do 5 let alone 10 🙈

There is no recommendation to eat 10 different fruit & veg per day. Two years ago there was an Imperial College study that identified that health benefits peaked from consumption of 800g per day. As a serve is defined as 80g in many countries, a number of news outlets (cough, Daily Mail) sensationalised it as 10 different fruit & veg per day.

There is general advice around to aim for 20 different types of fruit, veg, grains and nuts per week, to help with gut biome diversity, but this doesn’t mean 20 per day.

I do manage 800g on around 4-5 days a week but I have a strong motivation - endometriosis and managing inflammation - which it massively helps for me. I think it’s a tricky thing to do if you don’t have a strong driver. I was a huge salad dodger as a child but now chow down a big salad most days which is where most of my consumption comes from.

An 80g serve actually isn’t that much. It’s half a red pepper, half a pear, 7 cherry tomatoes, 4-5 big mushrooms, 3/4 of a banana, 2/3 of an apple, 4-5 strawberries, 1/3 can of chickpeas, 4cm of cucumber... it’s only raw leafy veg that is a massive volume at 80g. To the PP who ask how a single omelette can hold 4 veg - it’s definitely quite possible if you cook down the spinach, mushroom, tomato and peppers.

No idea how you get a kid to do it, but I think it’s reasonably achievable for an adult. I usually do at least 8 without thinking (though it definitely helps that I’m a vegetarian).

I don’t generally eat breakfast but will have an apple or a satsuma mid morning, so that’s one portion. Then for lunch I will have something like a veggie soup or a salad with spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, sugarsnaps, etc. That can easily be 4 or even 5portions. Then with dinner I usually have at least 3 or 4 potions of veg, sometimes 5, just as part of the meal (tomato bases for stews, side salads, peas, veg cooked in things, veg curries, veg chilli etc etc). I probably don’t eat 10 every day but I reckon I’m close every day and make it to 10 fairly often.

It can be quite easy to get your kids to eat 10 portions too!
I don't feed my children things like pasta or bread or white potatoes because they're just fillers with no nutritional value. If you replace those with fruits and lots of veggies it can quickly add up.
Also a tomato sauce with lots of different veg blending up is always good for fussy ones!

I can easily have salad for lunch and loads of different veg for dinner but it's fruit I struggle with.
I don't really like it. I'll eat oranges, grapes, water melon and mango.
However I loathe prepping them and it's too expensive to but ready chopped.

This might be helpful. It has many portion sizes for different fruit and veg. Some are small some are huge depending on nutritional value:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-counts-five-day

I get nowhere near most days. I only eat once a day in the week and I just wouldn't manage that much food
Likewise. I can probably eat 9 different types of fruit and veg in a day, but nowhere near the recommended portion size for each. Three tablespoons of each of 9 fruits and veg is really a huge amount. I have blueberries and a banana at breakfast, a couple of tomatoes with lunchtime sandwich, and 2 or 3 different veggies with dinner. But not in tablespoon amounts.
I'm not thin and I have a good appetite. But nine fruit and veggies a day feels like more than I need I struggle to fit them in. I don't eat meat every day and am careful with carbs.
What I do follow easily, is the recommendation that you eat 30 different plant based foods a week. I find that dead easy.

@iwantacookie -There’s no need to eat fruit. That’s the just bit people tend to focus on because it’s sweet and sugary and most people find it more palatable. You’re actually better off eating 8-9 portions of vegetables, and a portion or two of berries.

I'll eat oranges, grapes, water melon and mango.
However I loathe prepping them and it's too expensive to but ready chopped.

out of these 4 thr only pain is mango.

I eat at least 2 or 3 pieces of fruit during the day and have salad for lunch most days which probably has 4/5 different veg in (lettuce, cucumber, peppers, avocado, olives, sweet corn) but not a portion's worth of each.

Luckily my dcs like salad (as long as they can smother it with salad cream) so I try to make a salad to go with meals that don't have much veg, like pasta.

I'd say we easily hit 5 a day and I could do 10 on a good day but as I said, that would be for variety but not a full portion's worth of each.