Five portions a day?

Magentasue

I wonder if this is a bit of preaching to the converted. If you eat old style you probably will eat enough fruit and veg because you won't be filling up with ready meals, crisps etc.

I know there are some who avoid fruit and veg but generally speaking I bet most of us do OK. When you look at what a lot of people eat, it's eating fresh food that counts rather than whether it's mashed or not.

I would rather my kids had a fresh fruit smoothie than a glass of SunnyD oreven Longlife Orange Juice and you'll never convince me that they're equal.

Curry_Queen

MATH wrote:

Well as we're all posting our daily intakes I though I may as well post mine cos most people thinks my eating habits a bit wierd;) but in my family most of us can't stomach food before 6pm

Don't worry, you're not alone here. I rarely eat before 6pm myself and my son has a similar habit, and whilst I try to make him eat breakfast/lunch etc I fear I'm becoming obsessive in trying to make him eat when he doesn't really want to and worry about making food an issue ... nice to know I'm not alone in this


And for those of you worrying about mashing foods in case they become partially digested before eating ... it doesn't work like that and digestion doesn't occur until you have actually eaten the food, in whatever format, and the body's digestive enzymes set to work on digesting the food ... unless of course you decide to spit on your food before mashing it and then it will be partially digested before eating


PS ... hope I explained that ok as I've had a glass too many tonight, but I know what I mean and if anyone doesn't understand then ask me again tomorrow LOL!

crana999

Chemically, yes, it won't be digested, but a significant part of digestion (in the biological rather than strict chemical sense) is the mechanical breaking down the cells in whatever you're eating through chewing and stomach churning.

(See http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=digestion)

Curry_Queen

crana999 wrote:

Chemically, yes, it won't be digested, but a significant part of digestion (in the biological rather than strict chemical sense) is the mechanical breaking down the cells in whatever you're eating through chewing and stomach churning.

Yes, the mechanical action of chewing and peristalsis of the alimentary canal play a part in digestion too, but it's the enzymes, which are also present in saliva, that begin the process of breaking down the carbon compounds from the moment food enters your mouth. Simply mashing or pureeing food doesn't have the same effect.

crana999

Of course it doesn't have the same effect - but mechanical action is still a part of digestion, so mechanically breaking down a food is equivalent to it being partly digested.

If you were to place a big lump of plant in someone's stomach, it would contain lots of glucose molecules, which we can take up straight away without further chemical reactions (so you could think of it as containing some "pre-digested food", although it's not actually been pre-digested). However, we would find it very hard to extract most of the glucose it contained without the mechanical side of digestion, because most of it is inaccessible inside cell walls our enzymes can't destroy (although with the help of bacteria, fungi, or protists, animals can derive some nourishment from the cell walls).

Even if we did have enzymes capable of attacking the cell walls, it would take them much longer to "eat through" a whole lump of plant than it would the smaller particles resulting from mechanical action.

Clearly, in most cases, you need both the chemical and the mechanical sides of digestion to work together. Neither can work alone on most unprocessed foods. So, it is fair to say that something that has been either chemically or mechanically treated in a way that mimics some aspect of digestion and which makes the food easier or faster to digest can be considered partly pre-digested, even though treating it either mechanically or chemically, alone, doesn't have the same effect as digestion as a whole does.

Curry_Queen

I knew I shouldn't have got into this discussion when I'm tired and had a few glasses of wine

And anyway your brain cells are fit and healthy and mine long since perished :rotfl:

crana999

Can you tell im just procrastinating on doing any real work involving science?

(Today's hot topic - phosphorylation of 3-phosphoglycerate! Oh yeah!)

Curry_Queen

crana999 wrote:

Can you tell im just procrastinating on doing any real work involving science?

(Today's hot topic - phosphorylation of 3-phosphoglycerate! Oh yeah!)

:eek: I'm just glad those days are well past me :whistle:

Ticklemouse

crana999 wrote:

Can you tell im just procrastinating on doing any real work involving science?

(Today's hot topic - phosphorylation of 3-phosphoglycerate! Oh yeah!)

And to think my final year project was a study of the Feasibility of Back Street Cycle Routes in Birmingham At least I can still say that though Didn't include any science, but lots of maths (too much for my liking as it happens)

However, I was very very fit back then and did eat lots and lots of fruit and veg, entirely undigested before I got my molars round them

Sarahsaver

In the US the recommended daily intake of fruit and veg is 9 portions. I have an easy measure for a portion - one handful = one portion. I heard that people actually eat less fruit and veg on the whole since the '5-a-day' guidance came in. People don't like being told what to do, especially by the government;)