10 a day!!!!

Hmmm, I wonder. I think 10 a day is a bit excessive, but I do think we need to be encouraging people to eat a lot more fruit and vegetables.

The cost can be reduced by using markets instead of supermarkets, and using frozen products instead of fresh (what is the difference between freezing a home harvest of produce and buying pre-frozen?) although I accept it can be expensive. FarmFoods, for example, sell bags of frozen veg for £1 and I think I'm right in saying they are often 3 for 2.

And instead of feeding children (and adults for that matter) sugary fatty chocolatey breakfast cereals, they can be encouraged to eat porridge with some fruit (1 or 2 of their 10 a day), or fruit with natural yogurt, or pancakes with fruit etc.

And eating more salads and crudites - how many portions of veg in a salad? I have lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, celery, spring onions, radishes, red pepper, green peppers and red/orange peppers in my salad (which I eat daily - I love salad!) - so that has to be a few more portions - at least four, I would think.

And an evening meal with a couple of veg served alongside, and you're up to 7 or 8 portions.

I know there are many people who "can't possibly eat fruit" or "can't possibly eat veg" because they "don't like them" (really?? don't like ANY of the hundreds of varieties of fruit and vegetables that are available?)

And as for the cost - well there are very few people who would have absolutely no ability to grow anything at home. I have zero interest in gardening or growing things, but even I managed to grow strawberries, carrots, onions, potatoes, lettuces and tomatoes in a container last year. Everyone has a window ledge or window cill or a plot of garden which can be used to grow things.

I do get that it is a big part of the weekly budget, but if we cut back on what we spent on crap food, the hit to the purse would be less heavily felt.

It can be done. But it needs a commitment and the ability to tell ourselves to ruddy well grow a pair and stop whingeing that "I don't like", like stroppy little kids!

Apparently not, TriciaF. It doesn't matter how many tomatoes you eat per day, that only counts as one of your 10 a day! They've got to be different types of fruit and veg...

I think my DH is taking it seriously. I went out with friends today and when I got back he had been shopping and bought bananas, apples, oranges, pears and blueberries!

I agree with Ana - the portion sizes that NfkDumpling linked to are barking mad. And I can't get my head round why scoffing a pound or so of tomatoes (which I often do in Summer, warm from the allotment!) isn't any better for you than nibbling at a solitary one.

But I don't have any trouble eating at least ten portions of fruit and veg a day, albeit sometimes doubled up. Mainly fruit, which I love. Today so far I've had a banana, three apples, two kiwis, a little bunch of grapes, three satsumas, a big salad with lettuce, rocket, raw and sun-dried tomatoes, mini peppers, cucumber, half a dozen olives (do they count [hmmm]?). Still a few hours of nibbling time to go!

I do sometimes worry that I'm having too much sugar from the fruit. Presumably it's better for you than added sugar, but can it be a bad thing in quantity?

My DS buys blueberries, mango, strawberries, pears, etc. for the children every week and it costs a fortune.
They are the more expensive fruits because they have to be imported in the main and are out of season.

However, I do think the price of fruit (and food in general) in this country is relatively cheap and I don't think that the farmers get a fair deal at all - were we to pay the proper price to give the farmers everywhere a decent standard of living and buy fruit and vegetables that are not subsidised by governments we would be paying a lot more.

Food as a proportion of income is cheap in the UK compared to much of the world.

What about the beans in coffee and chocolate and the berries in gin?
Chocolate Pittcity? that's a bean too!

thatbags
What is the definition of "premature death" that we are supposed to be trying to avoid and that all this fruit and veg could (which means it also might not) prevent? A year or two earlier than you might have died anyway?
a colleague used to run every lunch-time and come back exhausted; when I asked why he did when it made him feel worn out, he said it was in the belief that he would live longer. But he will never know, will he?

I have mentioned on here before about a friend of mine who was a real health fanatic. She ate loads of fruit, veg, salads, never drank or smoked, exercised, was slim. She was so keen on being healthy that she took a tub of salad to the office Chrismas parties and when the rest of us were indulging in the buffet she would get out her salad and eat that and nothing else. She died of cancer at 52. Who knows if fruit and veg are good for us.

With all this advice, my attitude now is to wait a while, and the experts will change their minds. Eggs, cheese, butter...all have been foods to avoid, and then foods to value. It can only be a matter of time before some danger is found in fruit and vegetables, just give it time. Meanwhile, we eat what we enjoy.

As a vegetarian, I eat plenty of vegetables and love fruit, preferably local British varieties, but I do object to having all sorts of fruit and veg year round and the horrendous cost involved with importing fruit out of season. I like to have e.g.citrus fruits, apples and pears and mainly root veg during the winter, berries and salad throughout the summer and the occasional more unusual things (a pack of dates, Sharon fruits, persimmons, pomegranites etc once in a while). I can't understand how bananas are so ridiculously cheap - all I can assume that we're paying the Dominican farmers, or wherever, well below cost. That will ensure fair trade, seasonal variation and cut the carbon footprint.

KatyK, I think we should all eat sensibly - a little of what you fancy is good for you, but let's be honest - we have no idea what deadly additives are put into our soil or sprayed on our grains/fruit/vegetables etc. There are no guarantees, but it is possible that your friend's salad had all sorts of sprays and other dangerous rubbish - no matter how thoroughly washed, spun etc.

KatyK, I have a friend who is dying of cancer now, she ate lots of fish and fruit and veg and she spent a fortune on alternative medicine, remedies and courses but in the end it didn't help. There are so many factors, environmental and genetic, food is only part of it.

Thanks for the link Elegran. Most interesting. I see it advises 800 g fruit /veg a day or roughly 10 portions.
I try to buy mostly local produce in season.
I'm not eating the 800 g mentioned but I'm going to have a bash at achieving that over the next couple of weeks by way of experiment.

I had a Jaffa cake earlier on - is that one of my 10 a day?

Jaffas are oranges aren't they?
ps haven't eaten one for years

I don't eat a lot of fruit but do have vegetables every day. I don't think about it too much but think today is fairly average.

Breakfast - Porridge with raspberries (sometimes strawberries, or blueberries depending on offers)

Lunch - cottage cheese with rocket, green and red peppers, tomato, cucumber and radish.

Tea - Chicken enchiladas with carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, french beans, sprouts. (Strange mix but it's what I had in)

I've just counted 12 there which is fairly typical. Surely that's OK?

Oh I also had 2 packets of crisps, a jaffa cake and a small pack of Maltesers as well as scraping the chocolate butter icing from the bowl when decorating my grandson's birthday cake. Am I doomed?!!

I'd be eating a lot more greens if the warfarin would let me... Trouble is finding enough veg that don't stuff up my INR.

I have a good juocer abd a juice receioe book I naje a juise of vegs and fruit or rine days just fruit every dayI can easily get 10 in per dayOnly having one juise per day

I've just realised - 800g of fruit and veg a day. That's nearly a kilo.
My total daily intake of food is barely that.

A lot of the health benefits of fruit and veg is in the fibre which juicing removes. Fibre has a preventative effect against bowel cancer for instance.
I just wonder who made up the population on which this evidence is based? They must have been all vegetarian.
In reality you can damage your health by smoking and drinking too much. And by eating a diet made up of confectionary, pasties and chips. The extent to which you can improve your health by eating an extra portion of veg a day is probably very, very small. Nothing like the benefit of giving up smoking or drinking.
A lot of women smoke or get through a bottle of wine a day, and then fuss about the amount of salad in their diets. Which is pretty pointless

If you look at the African diet which is extremely high in plant food and roughage you will find that the length of time this stays in their gut is far less than ours. The incidence of bowel cancer is absolutely minimal.

We eat a banana cut on our porridge, split an apple and toast. Cheese, greens, tomato, bread or veg soup and bread at lunch. An afternoon cooked fruit or plate of veg with hummus. Mixed salad, veg sides and potato with dinner or a veg curry over cauli rice, or other casseroles full of chopped hidden veg. Fruit, berries with ice cream or pudding. I don't find it difficult or expensive to eat 8-12 servings of fruit and veg daily.

Joey and I like banana sarnies and, lentil soup, ............... but not at the same time.

When I saw the title, I thought it was about smokingblush] in which case as a smoker all be it less than 10 a day I'd have said possibly. As it's about portions of fruit and veg I say yes excessive and for many too expensive.

oops, that should have been.

Ridiculous! Just eat a balanced diet and all will be well. My mother never ate a vegetable in her life apart from peas and she lived a very healthy life (died at 87).