Five portions a day?

1_step_closer

Before I forget, one last thing I do for my IBS is boil some water and drink it while it is still warm.Try not to drink ice-cold drinks as well, as that can irritate your insides.When I am very very thirsty I love flat room temp coke (yes I know that sounds foul) as I ca drink it very quickly, and with a low blood sugar count it helps!

1 step

moanymoany

Yesterday for dinner I made a cassoulet. 100gs frozen home cooked haricot beans, 4 small onions chopped, 2 bay leaves, 2 tins tomatoes, 6 chipolata sausages, 1 rasher of bacon, 2 cloves of garlic.

Brown the sausages, put them in a pan. Brown the chopped bacon and onions, add the chopped or crushed garlic and cook for a minute. Put these with the sausages. Put the tomatoes in the pan to get all the bits from the frying, add the beans and bring to the boil. Put all the ingredients into the pan and simmer for about 45 minutes. Serve with crusty bread.

Two of us ate this. That is 4 veg portions each - onions, beans (if not eaten beans earlier in the day as only once a day counts) tomatoes (1 tin makes 2 portions).

The taste divine, I ate all mine :rotfl:

buxtonrabbitgreen

Hmmm. Do we really need 5 a day. I like the odd banana, but am not planning on trying to get 5 a day. I was just thinking about how healthy the Danes are and they eat very little veg. They eat lots of fish (herrings lovely) and all cycle all over the place. Thier diets seem to consist of mainly meat rye bread potatoes fish and beer!! I am only going on my experience of visiting family and friends there. But it is quite usual to see very elderly ladies on bikes wearing fur coats getting the shopping in the middle of winter. There also seems to be a distinct lack of pre prepared ready meal type food.

LearningToSave.

remember tinned fruit only counts if its in juice..............not if its in syrup.

madge7

LearningToSave. wrote: »

remember tinned fruit only counts if its in juice..............not if its in syrup.

interesting - didnt know that! thanks!

anonymousie

Dead easy to eat 5 a day- my understanding is that a portion is a decent handful (or a big bowlful of salad leaves).

Today I have had near 500g mixed frozen fruit (stuff meant for smoothies) pineapple/papaya/mango with toast for brekky

lunch roast dinner with carrots green beans peas sweetcorn (all froz as we haven't been shopping for a couple of days, and with 5 of us we eat a lot of fruit and veg!)

Leeks and leftover veggies with cold meat for tea. Will be fruit for supper if I want it.

I often have several apples/clementines/bananas a day and take a bag of fruit to work with me to pick at if I'm hungry.

Kids take 3 fruit items with packed lunch and often have 'nana with their brekfast (they are 12 and 14). Youngest takes fruit for a snack ontop of what ever fruit/veg she has a school lunch. We have 2 or 3 (maybe more) portions as eve meal too.

BTW we often eat veggie just because we like it and it is cheap! So veg/pulse curries/soups/veggie bolgnese are all east and cheap.

kate83

1_step_closer wrote: »

Hi! I also suffer from IBS really badly lately as well but I find that anything like branflakes or all bran or full brown bread makes me really ill so be careful on that.

I used to have the same problem and couldn't eat brown bread without having severe stomach cramps and tummy trouble but found once I started eating more veg it didn't effect me as much - and now not at all. But if I start eating like I used to (mostly ready prepared stuff) then I have trouble again.

spendaholic

I easily manage my 5 a day but it's mostly fruit which isn't supposed to be so hot.

Yes, the 5 is the minimum recommended.

Yes, numerous glasses of fruit juice count as just one portion. This is because there's no fibre in it, it's processed, and it's high in fruit sugar. I hadn't heard the same about smoothies, though.

I'll have a glass of juice with my breakfast. Then I'll have a banana mid-morning. Then I'll have a portion of strawberries for a pudding at lunch time. Then I'll have an apple or a pear in the afternoon. Then I'll have 2 veg portions with my tea. And I might have grapes or melon for pudding at teatime.

Potatoes don't count and you're not supposed to just eat peas and sweetcorn either, again because of the high sugar content.

Frozen veg is considered by some as much better than fresh as the freshness and goodness has been frozen in.

Check the labels. Most products now tell you how much of the pack goes counts as 1 portion - even desserts and things.

ness_w

When I am really feeling the pinch one of the easiest things to gou out of the window is making sure everyone gets enough fruit and veg. There are 8 in our family, so that's 40 portions a day, so you can imagine how it adds up. I'd really like to know how people manage to ensure they get enough of the green stuff (and all the other colours) and keep themselves healthy on a careful budget.

A few tips to start with:

We grow raspberries and freeze them, then in the winter a few handfuls whizzed up with a tin of peaches in juice, honey and homemade yoghurt makes a great smoothie.

Buy the cheap black bananas (my lovely greengrocer gives them to me) and freeze in their skins, can be used for smoothies, baking or James Martin's banana 'ice cream'.

We store cooking apples from the tree in boxes the greengrocer gets her apples in - so no need for wrapping in newspaper. Imperfect ones we put outside the house for peoiple to take for free - so that's money saving for them!

A winter cheapy standby is leek and potato soup, as well as carrot, potato and lentil.

When children are not good at eating an apple down to the core, we rinse them under the tap and grate along with some mature cheddar, mix with mayonnaise and use it in sandwiches.

With left over pastry, I spread with some pureed dried apricots, roll up like a swiss roll and slice it up to make little spirals. Bake these in the oven with whatever you were cooking and they are a healthier and easier treat than jam tarts.

Ness.

Bitsy_Beans

I really didn't know you could freeze bananas in their skins! Thanks for that.

Some good tips here, am only sorry I have none to add!