healthy family meals

boredjellybean

thanks for all of your replies
I'm going to try & add an extra veg in each meal which I think will really help & I also want to include more pulses in our diet, I will also try sweet potato again as an alternative to potatoes - just thought you could also try cauliflower rice instead of rice & cauliflower mash (or a half & half mix with potato) is really nice

pablakeman

I agree with the people who are saying that 7 is too much. Remember that these are only guidelines anyway and the real aim is to eat a variety of fruit and veg, rather than treating it like a mathematical equation ie 5 fruit and veg per day = good, > 5 fruit and veg a day = bad. If this equation was true then you could just eat a couple of tins of Heinz Five Beanz a day and you would be as fit as a fiddle! Follow guidelines, but remember that is all they are. You (and to a certain extent your doctor) know if you are healthy or not, not the government.

cheeswright

I only think 7 is too much if you try to eat it as well as what you are currently eating and if a lot of that is not fruit and veg..what is it?
the idea is that these should replace some of what you are currently eating if its not a balanced diet
largely the carb portions and some of the meat.
If you try not eating rice, pasta, potatoes and bread for a week and like me your too poor to replace it with great slabs of meat - which would be unhealthy anyway..you would find it difficult not to eat 7 portions of fruit and veg
so if you even halved your carbs and replaced that at each meal with one portion of fruit of veg then almost everybody would be able to do it
and lots of meals contain several portions of carbs
so breaded meat - served with any form of potato is more carbs than should be eaten in a whole day for instance and all of your days meat allowance..

I guess actually Im confused as to what else you would eat in a day if its not fruit and veg or do people really eat huge amounts of carbs and meat - (and dairy too - forgot dairy..) and what does that menu look like ?

cutestkids

cheeswright wrote: »

I only think 7 is too much if you try to eat it as well as what you are currently eating and if a lot of that is not fruit and veg..what is it?
the idea is that these should replace some of what you are currently eating if its not a balanced diet
largely the carb portions and some of the meat.
If you try not eating rice, pasta, potatoes and bread for a week and like me your too poor to replace it with great slabs of meat - which would be unhealthy anyway..you would find it difficult not to eat 7 portions of fruit and veg
so if you even halved your carbs and replaced that at each meal with one portion of fruit of veg then almost everybody would be able to do it
and lots of meals contain several portions of carbs
so breaded meat - served with any form of potato is more carbs than should be eaten in a whole day for instance and all of your days meat allowance..

I guess actually Im confused as to what else you would eat in a day if its not fruit and veg or do people really eat huge amounts of carbs and meat - (and dairy too - forgot dairy..) and what does that menu look like ?

I completely agree with this, I find it very difficult to get my head around the fact that people do not eat much fruit and veg a day with many saying that even 5 is way too much. I often wonder what they do eat as in what a typical weeks meals are if they do not incorporate much veg and fruit.
I am not trying to offend by asking I am genuinely interested I suppose because I have always had a diet that included lots of veg, fruit and salad since being a small child I really have no idea how people eat if that is not their typical diet.

tiger_eyes

cutestkids wrote: »

I completely agree with this, I find it very difficult to get my head around the fact that people do not eat much fruit and veg a day with many saying that even 5 is way too much. I often wonder what they do eat as in what a typical weeks meals are if they do not incorporate much veg and fruit.
I am not trying to offend by asking I am genuinely interested I suppose because I have always had a diet that included lots of veg, fruit and salad since being a small child I really have no idea how people eat if that is not their typical diet.

It's actually very easy (and inexpensive!) to subsist mainly on carbohydrates, and I don't mean highly processed junk food either. For example, you have some nice hot porridge in the morning to fill you up. A ham sandwich for lunch with maybe a yoghurt. Then in the evening pasta and a sauce. Tomorrow some more porridge in the morning, a different sandwich for lunch, an evening meal mainly of rice. I'm not suggesting it's healthy - I'm trying to change my ways - but carbohydrates are easy, cheap and filling.

Annie_Elisabeth

I don't put much stock in dave and his mates with their guidelines (sending literature into schools telling them that at 5 they need to eat low fat food, spread instead of butter and no suger chemical filled juice/cordial instead of a bit of sugar was the final straw of my patience).
We eat all sorts of fruit and veg, some days more than others.
We use frozen, tinned, fresh from the alotment (thanks mum !), picked from the garden.....
I'm guessing this is being pushed higher to make people up from one or two to several as someone mentioned.
I think if you're asking you're already doing pretty great and sometimes the portion sizes to count, if you're counting, are smaller than you think

WilliamPang1

I think 7 portion in a day more,In my opinion 5 is enough for us.Also we have to aware about our daily food.Also we have to choose our packet food very carefully.

THIRZAH

Over the last couple of days I've left the digital scales out and have been weighing my potions of fruit and veg.A pear weighed 130g, an apple 103 and the tomato I added to my lunchtime sandwich 82 g.A portion of my home made tomato sauce which contains tomatoes, onions, carrots and celery weighed 210g so I calculated that last nights chicken and butternut squash lasagne contained three servings of veg.
I'd like to get up to 10 portions a day but have decided to increase our consumption slowly -not sure if our fairly elderly digestions would cope with a massive increase!