Five portions a day?

newlywed

Hi, with ham omelette I always add peas or sweetcorn into it.

Spag bol,lasagna - I add finely chopped peppers, mushrooms, peas, sweetcorn, grated carrot, red lentils - anything to get extra veg into the kids. I always serve lasagna with extra veg (which ever ones I haven't put into the dish).

For pasta, again, I always bung in peppers, peas/sweetcorn, sometimes a bit of spinach (whatever's in the fridge really).

Onion counts towards your 5 a day too, as does chopped tomato or passata.

PasturesNew

I think if I ate 5 a day, with the sheer volume that would involve, there'd be no calories left over for any other food.

Adding things into cooking sounds like a solution, but when you do the maths it isn't. e.g. One green pepper is two portions, so slip that into (say) a chilli. The thing is, that sized chilli would make me 6 meals.

It seems a choice between:
a] eat the 5 a day and no other food, stay the same size
b] fit the 5 a day in with other food, put weight on
c] sod it

Going with [c] at the moment.

Sarahsaver

AFAIK it's fruit juice that counts as ONE portion but a smoothie if you had for instance a whole banana and a handful of berries in it would be 2 portions, as the whole fruit is included.
Dried fruits count too.
The recommendation in the USA is a lot more per day!
One portion is about a handful, which is not a lot really. You could try making beansprouts, always having one fruit at breakfast, one fruit mid morning would make it relatively easy to fit the 5 a day in.

I would never do something JUST because the govt recommends it. Sometimes I rebel and have way over my 5 a day LOL

in Australia it's 2 fruit and 5 veg
in the USA its recommended 2 to 4 servings/day of fruits and 3 to 5 servings/day of vegetables.

balmaiden

I often wonder if your body size means that your fruit/ veg portion size should be bigger/smaller? I mean my O/h is 6ft and weighs 12 and a half stone. I on the other hand am 5ft and weigh 8 and a half stone.

We do manage our 5 a day in fact it is usually more but when you look at the guidlines it says things like " three heaped tablespoons of peas". would two be enough for me? By the same token should Hubbie be eating four? I know they are guidelines and we should use our common sense, but it still seems a bit of a grey area to me.

hotcookie101

Do they count? I love gherkins and pickled beetroot, dont eat huge amount cos of the salt etc, but do the ones I eat count towards my portions?
thanks

moanymoany

Good news - yes they do. And the fruit in jam counts.

hotcookie101

wow thanks for quick reply. TBH wasn't actually expecting it to count, I thought it was only fresh/frozen/tinned but good to know
(think it would have to be A LOT of jam before I hit a portion size though

peb

Bearing in mind that apparently baked beans could - due to lobbying by certain manufacturers - I would expect so.

We all know that wine (grapes) counts as do fruit gums, wine gums and chocolate carrots!

fizzel81

peb wrote: »

We all know that wine (grapes) counts as do fruit gums, wine gums and chocolate carrots!

i never knew that :rotfl:

Penelope_Penguin

peb wrote: »

We all know that wine (grapes) counts as do fruit gums, wine gums and chocolate carrots!

I'd love to see a link for that Are you sure it wasn't from this thread from 1st April this year :rotfl: :rotfl:

I'll add this to the current 5 a day thread to keep ideas together.

Penny. x