Five portions of fruit and veg

[TerriB]

I know I am being REALLY thick here, but when you read it is recommended that you eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, does that mean 5 portions of a mix of fruit and veg, or 5 of fruit and 5 of veg?

sunny delight is revolting stuff and should be banned. why on earth anyone would give their children such a horrible cocktail of chemicals (including aspartame! I ask you) to drink instead of water or juice or even ribena is completely beyond me. and that sort of stuff just shouldn't be marketed to children as if it were juice, it just isn't!

and I'm quite happy with the concept of a tin of tomatos being a portion of fruit or veg, but heinz spaghetti hoops??? fine, its a perfectly good thing to give your children now and then (if a bit high in sugar) but let's not pretend it is fruit or vegetables!

food manufacturers are just so dishonest, somehow, drives me nuts. like all of those "health" bars that say they are 85% fat free - hmmm, that still leaves 15% of fat in there!

PPH, completely agree with you. I don't have any problem with tins of tomatoes counting as a portion - they're veg/fruit - but spag bol, NO! Likewise beans in a tin are fine, of course they count. Oh I could go on all day about this but I won't. Instead I'll direct anyone who is interested in moaning about how advertisers sell food and drink to children to The Parents Jury , which is co-ordinated by The Food Commission.

There is vegetable oil in Sunny D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what a great site! completely agree about the bbc and tweenies stuff being crap - was horrified to read their yoghurt label the other day. surely it isn't difficult to make a healthy yoghurt and slap the tweenies on it? why does it have to be so high in sugar?
mind you not as bad as some of the other branded yogs which contain strawberry FLAVOUR and not even strawberries - criminal

PPH, the Tweenie yoghurts are actually slightly lower in sugar than normal Ski ones I think it was the Tweenie ones, I remember checking once.

one the subject of baked beans - have you seen how much salt they have in them ? A meal of beans on toast (which has been one of my toddler's favourites) contains about their daily quota - there is an amazing amount of salt in bread as well.

I really struggle to think of things that ds will eat at Nursery. He is there from 8am until 5.45pm 3 days a week. He always has a yoghurt or frmage frais (Tweenies or otherwise)... I give him fruit and he gets cheese sandwiches for his 4pm snack. But since he grew out of the baby food jars and toddler jars I just dunno what to give him. Sometimes he gets heinz shapes and pork sausages.... or mince and tatties from tea the night before..... or occasionally pasta with pesto..... BUT WHAT ELSE?
As it is, dp and I dont sit down until 9pm at night for our own dinner then up again at 6.15am! What else can I give him for lunch that I don't have to prepare from scratch every night and is low in salt and sugar???

Thankfully, he drinks water so that reduces the sugar intake quite a bit.

How does it work M2T? Do you send the food and nursery warm it up? I would definitely try and go along with giving him your leftovers. What about couscous with chicken and veg? Or tuna salad? Or pasta salad?

Bozza - they heat things up but wont cook them. Leftovers are great BUT we eat a lot of spicey foods and we only occasionally (like Sunday dinner) have something ds will really like. He does like pasta and pesto I s'pose.

I just wish there was something in a tin that wasn't full of salt! There MUST be a market for it.

...anyone??

Can you separate out a bit of your spicy food before adding all the spices?

That sounds like a good idea Soupie. Are you sure that your DS will not like spicy food M2T - my DS is a great fan of Asda meal deal curries (medium) - although I know thats not v helpful for you trying to think of healthy, low-salt food is it?

If your DS likes pasta there are quite a lot of variations you could do on that. You could buy those fresh sauces from the supermarket and add frozen veg, or brocolli is quite quick to chop up and bung in, or babycorn and mangetout and you could add chopped up bits of cooked meat (ham, chicken etc).

M2T, how old is your son? I make all my son's food at the moment (though his nursery when he goes there does fabulous organic food - all veggie or fish. The menu looked fabulous) Anyway, I often make him veg in cheese sauce. Cook frozen mixed veg, mix butter and cornflower in a saucepan over the head, add milk and heat until thickened, then add cheese. Stir in the veg - hey presto. My ds (21months) loves it. He also eats tuna with mash and mayo and yoghurt (tinned tuna & - if I'm lazy, the instant salt-free baby mash by ORganix) or risotto with mushrooms and broccolli (takes 20 minutes) I often add cheese to this. OR I just make sandwiches. Peanut butter, marmite, cheese, ham and honey - but not all together! I put in loads of fruit (peaches and strawberries today) and rice cakes and babybels. If we have mash, I keep some over and add passata, cheese and mixed veg. None of this is difficult to cook and take 20 mins max. You could freeze some portions or just make double and give it two days running. My ds never minds. You could also use the organic baby pasta sauces as they are salt free with his usual pasta. Organix bolognaise is good.

Also in the organic section of Sainsbury's there are organic tins of bean casseroles and all sorts. I think these are all low salt and maybe worth a try - the brand is Real Earth, or something similar.

WWW - beans in a can are a portion of vegetables???? Since when ??? beans are beans NOT vegetable... l or am I wrong???

P.S. Cans of beans are full of salt and sugar

Recently on the BBC they were covering how much salt kids should have and basicalkly with 1 bowl of corn flakes, and 1 slice of white toast with 1/2 caon of beans... there you had it! so add crisps to this, maybe a ready meal... or sausages... and you quickly overdose on salt.... then the mum gives "fake" juice and some chocolate - there you have a child with an inbalanced diet... it's VERY easy to slip

The one thing in DSs diet that I can feel proud about is that they have pure fruit smoothies to drink. Oh, and they have wholemeal multigrain bread too so that's actually 2 healthy things!!

OK pupuce, technically baked beans (i.e. haricot beans) are legumes! Lentils are too and I'd count them as a portion of veg I think. Beans are good for you and not meat or junk food, so I reckon they count but I'm not sure whether the government counts them as a veg portion, maybe not. I know the standard tins are high in sugar and salt and the organic or reduced salt/sugar ones are better, you're right. Here's some info about the nutritional value of beans!

Call me sad, but I was interested to know if pulses count as a portion and it seems they do, although potatoes don't apparently. Dept of Health Guidelines and FAQ are here

No potatoes don't as the government wants them to count towards the daily carb intake, however they do contain vitamin C so I think they should.

If we start counting potatoes than people will believe eating 5 packs of crisps or 5 portions of chips is a healthy diet

Well there you go you see, I'm just an innocent! I would only have counted potatoes "cooked at home" - amazing, totally agree, crisps shouldnt count and anyway you'd have to eat lots of bags to make up a portion, what better excuse do kids need.

But potatoes could just count once, like baked beans regardless of how many you eat, couldn't they?

Do crisps made from vegetables count?

Potatoes don't count. Half a tin of baked beans is one portion (I believe you can get reduced salt - or is it sugar - beans, but haven't seen them yet). The things I have read have not included spaghetti hoops though. I wouldn't have thought there was enough tomato in a tin to equal one portion. Canned and frozen are just as good as fresh, often better, as fresh veg/fruit loses its' vitamin content as it gets older whereas canned/frozen has it preserved.

Crisps made from vegetables have loads of fat so I wouldn't have thought they would count. The same applies to avocado (sadly )