"Seven a day"

Some years ago there was an experiment, albeit with a limited number, allowing children to eat pretty much whatever they wanted. Their choices were analysed weekly rather than daily and it turned out that over a period of about seven days their choices averaged out to a balanced diet. Individual meals were not necessarily "healthy" but the overall intake was. Perhaps the government should interfere less.

Surely all science has to justify is the quality of the research. Not what anyone does with it?

It is not a question of not taking science seriously, but science has got to justify why it wishes to be taken seriously and at the moment the science of nutrition is still in the alchemy stage. One day it is doom and disaster if you eat fat, Fibre is the way forward, then it is carbs bring death, eat more fat, now no salt, then well...... Then they change their mind and we go round the circle again.

When the science of nutrition grows up I will take some notice of it.

Taking ever-changing eating recommendations in one's stride and eating moderately and with great variety IS taking it seriously.

Anno, you can have the green veg like broccoli. In fact you should have more of that and less fruit.

I always find it strange that people who say we do not take science seriously enough, in for example the energy debate, do not take the science of nutrition seriously, which after all, is just another facet of the energy debate.

I could live on fruit, if I had to, but would miss the green veg like broccoli.

I like veggies but not much fruit. I feel healthy and all this dictating from on high will not affect my diet one jot.

sorry, that was for thatbags

yummy!

To be honest NfkDumpling, I do not know, or care, but generally my portions of veg are quite large. That was what I ate on one day and does not constitute a planned eating programme of any kind. I just happen to love vegetables and I include a lot of them in my diet and it does show how you can eat the recommended amount while eating a fairly ordinary diet.

As I have said many times, the phrase that informs my eating is 'Eat well, not too much, most of it plants'. My reading of healthy eating reports never extends beyond the headlines. It was just I realised that on Wednesday I had actually fulfilled the guidelines without any intention. The following two days I had around 4 - 5 portions of fruit and veg.

And I fried the chicken and the mushrooms in beef fat.

Oh, I forgot! I ate a small orange as well.

Today I have eaten small quantities of the following in no particular order and no particular amount, just what I found comfortable:

oats
wheat flour
butter
sugar
dates
apricots
apple
milk
egg
cheese
oatcake
tomato
leek
broccoli
parsnip
chicken
bread
mushrooms

If it ain't right according to the blah blah, that's too bad. Do I look bovvered?

A site I have just looked at, says that 7 portions of F&V is 400grams a day. I cannot see how I could eat that much each day, but it will give me a figure to work around.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26818386

Flickety did you have 5cm of cucumber (1 portion)? Did your veggies total 3 heaped tablespoons (1 portion) and as yams and plantain don't count, does squash? I lost heart when I found that one large parsnip - or 4 heaped tablespoons of French beans (FOUR heaped tablespoons!) - or 8 (EIGHT) cauliflower florets only count as a single portion and it takes 8 cherry tomatoes to equal an ordinary one. I just can't eat that much veg. (I'd be jet propelled for a start!)

How many of you eat chicken livers and sardines? A strange way to prove a point.
The idea of complete proteins went out with the ark in nutritional circles. We all eat enough protein in this country - or we used to before food banks proliferated - to cover the essential amino acid gap.

My husband's mother is the same as your father, Flickety, although she's not exactly fit and well at the moment. She'll buy a ham salad, thinking it's healthy, eat the ham and leave the salad.
My husband and I took part in the Epic study. He will not be included in those who died of cancer despite eating loads of fruit and veg because he died in 2012 and the study finished in 2010.

Only just come to this thread as I have been away for a day or so.

On Wednesday I ate:
Breakfast: Small fruit juice, marmite rice cakes with soft cheese and sliced cucumber (2)
Lunch: Beef and squash stew, more squash than beef, but meaty and tasty, spring greens and potatoes, stewed rhubarb, (3)
Supper: Frittata made with courgettes, sausage and cheese, grilled tomato, apple (3)
Total: 8

This was not planned intentionally, I just love vegetables and have recently been reducing the amount of meat I eat for ethical reasons and replacing it with extra veg.

All this fuss about superfoods and expensive fruit is ridiculous, root vegetables, brassicas, frozen peas and sweetcorn can all provide people with a plenty of vegetables without spending huge amounts of money on exotic fruit and veg.

My father lived fit and well to 92 and never ate fruit or vegetables if he could avoid them.

Just googled this and it seems that whilst the term 'dietician' is a protected and regulated title, the term nutritionist has no clear meaning and anyone can describe themselves as such. There are a few courses of different types and a few voluntary registers but there is no requirement for practitioners to be registered or bound by any professional code of practice. I have actually consulted a nutritionist in the past for raging allergies, but would now be far more cautious after reading this.

Aka, not suggesting that Zoe Harcombe knows the 'truth' and everyone else is wrong, but when a statement about increasing our fruit & veg to x, y or z portions a day is issued and widely accepted without much question, it's interesting to look at a totally different perspective .
Interestingly, I know 2 people who have qualified as nutritionalists in the last couple of years, and some of what they each advocate puts them poles apart ! More and more, I feel that no-one has a clue when it comes to the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of food and nutrition!

Oh, I skipped the nutrition part of the article, Aka - most people must realise we'd find it hard to live on a diet of just fruit and veg!

It was the origins of the 'Five a Day' mantra which I found interesting!

Whatever we eat, it's fairly obvious that as each country becomes more dependent upon ready meals, their cancer and obesity and heart attack rates go up. DBH went to Sainsbury's last week to buy some ready meals for us as we were both singing in concerts all weekend. They were fish based, from Sainsbury's - and vile. Glutinous messes of carbs, and although he bought a variety, in each carton there were only 8 small prawns, and each carton containing mange-touts only had four small ones. Along with perhaps four baby spinach leaves which wilted down to nothing, that was all the protein and veg they contained. One had roughly a dessertspoon full of small slices of chicken. Lots of people live on these things, with the sauce being almost solid carbs and about ten times as much noodles/rice/spaghetti as protein or veg. Veg negligible, in fact. I was so disappointed.

Zoe Harcombe sells diet books. Rcently in the Daily Mail she was explaining that fruit and veg are actually no good for you. There’s a fascinating conversation to be had about the evidence base on the relationship between diet and health but would you start with Zoe’s work?
We all rely on heuristics, or shortcuts. Trusting an authority is one. Zoe boasts that she is “studying for a PhD in nutrition” but she admitted that she’s not registered for a PhD anywhere (although she is thinking about doing one in the future).
Does it matter? We read a precis of research as a shortcut, but once you lose trust, to double check whether someone has fairly represented an entire field, you’d have to read that field’s entire canon, and after many years of work, whatever your other conclusions were, the strongest would be that any timesaving benefit from reading a precis has plainly been annihilated. Given that this is the case, I know it’s harsh, and you may disagree, but in a busy world, I’m not sure I see the point of a Zoe Harcombe.

Extracted from Bad Science.

Very interesting link, NannaAnna - thank you. At least we now know who came up with the 5 a day idea!

"Five-a-day was invented at a meeting of fruit and veg companies at a meeting in California in 1991. The term has since been trademarked by the American National Cancer Institute. It was not evidence based..."

Hmm...

Not my statistics Aka, I merely quote
Now here's another article by the same nutritionalist, just to keep the debate going
www.zoeharcombe.com/2014/04/the-perfect-five-a-day/