The Ten a Day challenge, join me

Winchelsea wrote: »

Just read that Telegraph article. Yes, interesting.
But what's this about canned and frozen fruits increasing your risk of dying by 17% ?
IS that what I read, or was it a misread?

Managed nine today. Still time for a tenth - maybe I'll crunch some celery later!

Breakfast: corn flakes, raisins, apple.
Lunch: peanut butter and banana sandwich with an extra handful of peanuts, plus an orange.
Tea: Mrs McCartney veggie sausages, sweet corn, peas, carrots, onions. Rice pudding and tinned peach slices.

Not so good, in that five are fruits. Oh well, onwards and upwards!

A lot of tins are made of aluminium now and it reacts with foods and oxidises which then leaches into foods. This is especially problematic with acidic foods such as tomatoes, any vegetables with citric acid and sodas. So to prevent that problem, tins are often lined with epoxy resins.
Bisphenol A (BPA) is used to make this coating and BPA is toxic to humans. Although it has been in plastics for a long time, the toxins are a greater problem when in tin cans. They correct one problem with another one.

BPA can mimics estrogen, has led to early puberty in girls, has been linked to breast cancer and is also an endocrine disruptor along with many other health problems.

The effects of both the aluminium leaching and BPA poisoning can be reduced (not eliminated) if fermented or probiotics are taken at the same time.
So drink a glass of kefir when eating tinned tomatoes, for example.

BPA is not the only toxicity in tinned foods.

This link explains a bit about it. The title is the chemical industries take on it.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/03/25/health-risks-bpa.aspx

Winchelsea wrote: »

Thanks for the article pop up pirate, Scary! And I suppose frozen stuff is affected by the plastic bags. hmmmm.......

It is.
When a tin of food is eaten in isolation, the toxicity won't harm the average person but when all the tins, all the bagged food, all the additives and preservative etc are all eaten each and every day along with other 'bad' foods such as soy, commercial cereals and refined carbs, its pretty easy to see why we are, as a nation, getting sicker and sicker.

Time the governments took steps I think.

I read somewhere a while ago that the government suggested 5 a day as they thought that this was the highest amount that people would do, in reality the original amount suggested by government advisors was 12 a day but it was decided that this was not achievable and 5 was a good idea.

I think that if we all ate more fruit and veg and less meat we would be healthier. Years ago we had a diet much higher in veg and the meat in the household was given to the men as they were the ones at work and they needed the protein. The ladies and the kids only had what was left and if that was nothing they had the veg and potatoes and often filled up with bread and the pudding on offer.

I am not suggesting that this is a good way of going on but we could all do with eating less meat. The portion size of meat has increased over the years. People who are saying they cannot afford to eat fruit and veg could maybe afford more if they spent less on the meat part of the meal. A joint of beef in years gone by would have done at least 3 meals but these days we pile our plate with the meat from the Sunday joint and leave very little for the next day or for cold cuts.

Just my thoughts. I am trying to live by this currently and it seems to work.

Mrs_Muckle wrote: »

I read somewhere a while ago that the government suggested 5 a day as they thought that this was the highest amount that people would do, in reality the original amount suggested by government advisors was 12 a day but it was decided that this was not achievable and 5 was a good idea.

I think that if we all ate more fruit and veg and less meat we would be healthier. Years ago we had a diet much higher in veg and the meat in the household was given to the men as they were the ones at work and they needed the protein. The ladies and the kids only had what was left and if that was nothing they had the veg and potatoes and often filled up with bread and the pudding on offer.

I am not suggesting that this is a good way of going on but we could all do with eating less meat. The portion size of meat has increased over the years. People who are saying they cannot afford to eat fruit and veg could maybe afford more if they spent less on the meat part of the meal. A joint of beef in years gone by would have done at least 3 meals but these days we pile our plate with the meat from the Sunday joint and leave very little for the next day or for cold cuts.

Just my thoughts. I am trying to live by this currently and it seems to work.

Before "years ago" our diets were made up of mainly meat and vegetables but very little potatoes or bread. Fruit was a rare treat other than apples.

The problem with todays meat consumption is not to do with the actual protein, but the type of meat it is, where its from and what toxins are in it.
Supermarket mass produced meat is bad for us.

Take beef as an example.
A cow is born to a mother who never ate any grass, was fed food it wouldn't naturally eat, is fed hormones, antibiotics, vaccinations and artificial additives to boost its "health" (a grass fed diet would eliminate all this)
That baby cow then endures the same fate and is artificially raised to be the right weight for slaughter in a shorter period of time.

It is that unhealthy, tainted meat that is bad in large amounts.

Go for grass fed meat or organic at least and avoid all meat that has come from hormones or vaccine treated animals.
Grass fed meat is full of all the essential vits, mins, proteins etc and is not harmful to health.

Another thing that happened before "years ago" and that was people didn't waste any part of the animal.
Fat was eaten in one form or another. Fat is crucial to health and we have been fed the line that fat is bad for so long that people opt for low fat everything.
The offal was eaten, the bones were used in soups and stocks,

Every part of an animal provides us with everything we need to live a healthy and happy life.