Water on the table. Does it really take a Professor to advise us?

[unrealhousewife]

Following the sudden realisation by top medics that we should be eating 10 portions of fruit and veg a day instead of of 5, I just despair at this random approach to the nation's health. People need well researched advice on diet and health, real support for prevention including regulation.

A jug of water on the table? Many homes don't have a table let alone a jug.

So much time and effort involved in regulating industry and tweaking, watching them find ways round it with colour coding schemes, reduced sizes, the renaming of additives so they don't actually sound like additives..

The real problem is that sugar calories are cheaper than nutritious calories, convenience food is cheaper than fresh.

And the headline message to the public is a jug of water on a table they probably don't even have.

Well it's a start! Any better ideas then?

A tax on sugar and additives should have been put in place years ago.

Mine have juice with breakfast, then it's water all day.

A jug would get spilt in this house, what quaint 1950's world is he living in? Secure water bottles all the way.

They get fizz on high days and holidays.

Lol people would still buy sugar related products.. Costing more and making the purchase of a table even further out of reach....

Sod the guidelines. The only people that take them seriously are the people who already know that we need vegetables and water.

Well, considering that some mumsnetters seem to think it's a breach of their child's human rights for schools to insist on water only, then yes,nit probably does need a professor.......

When fresh food is so much more expensive than easy calories that taste nice, don't have bits, give you an immediate energy boost, why would anyone bother? Especially when the NHS picks up the pieces when their health fails.

I'm not so bothered about items that should have sugar in them, if the sugar is just sugar. The trouble is, it isn't just sugar any more, it's glucose fructose syrup, which is like the crack cocaine of the sugar world. It's in every sweet thing, unless you pay through the nose (just read the labels on a shelf full of jam!).
A jug of water isn't going to counteract the effects of all the crap they are using to substitute for real ingredients!

The 10 portions a day isn't new - it was the aim before the 5 a day slogan was created, but surveys showed people who didn't already eat much fruit and veg found the target of 10 too scary and offputting, and seven a day didn't sound good. Also people overestimate how big a portion is, so someone who thinks they eat 5 a day probably has more anyway.
It's one of the most successful slogans ever, and has led to most people eating a bit more fruit and veg.

Obviously that's just a start.

Exactly my point citrus, the patronising attitude about 5 a day u turn has lost huge amounts of credibility among the sugar addicted people that most of us are.

Why do medics treat people like idiots?

What I want to hear is a quantity that can be measured, accurately, over a week or even a month. A seasonal guide, so how many carrots in winter, how many tomatoes in summer, in weight.

How much water bearing in mind other fluid intake? Levels of dehydration, Climate weather, etc? It can't be that hard for eminent scientists to work out, we are not all that physically different.

That way we can't find excuses, which is what we tend to do, we all know that elusive grandma who never are vegetables and lived until 103.

Treating us all as though we are x dysfunctional obese person in denial from the Jeremy Kyle show is really not helping.

See amistillsexy I thought all sugar was evil, more biased PR which makes me lose faith in the system.

I wonder if the sugar issue is a bit like climate change, with government fussing about big business economics rather than what's best for the public as a whole.