has anyone a "7 a day" meal plan please?

asparagus1968

7 a day seems loads!
any meal plans around?
thank you:A

BitterAndTwisted

As this new advice has only been discussed in the last few days I doubt anyone has had time to formulate a "7-a-day meal-plan".

Personally, I'm going to ignore it. The five was an arbitrary number and so is all this seven bunkum.

Eat what you like. If you're enjoying a healthy and varied diet already carry on as you are. If not, add a handful of grapes or a couple of tomatoes a day.

tiredwithtwins

couple of weeks ago I started having a small tub of nuts and raisens to take to work and nibble on ... that's my extra 2 portions a day!!!

from memory, the 7 a day thing has been pushed for many years in Australia, I think ...

peewhyeff

No plan to offer but in todays D.Mail, Aldo Zilli suggests adding beetroot and chopped peppers to home-made tomato soup(it looks like just tomato); puree of celery,leek,onion,sweetcorn,and carrot stirred into spag.bol.sauce; grated parsnip in carrot cake; and other sneaky ways of upping the fruit and veg intake without even noticing.

asparagus1968

thanks,

the addition of purees is interesting, we eat as lot of pasta/sauce based meals.
I just can't seem to imagine eating more, without making bigger meals, which I don't want to do.

room512

A few weeks ago I grated some carrots and froze them in bags with about 3 carrots in each. I've been adding them to minced beef and it's been very successful.

Billie-jo

what about something along these lines -


B/fast - Porridge with banana. Apple or orange juice (2)
Lunch - Salad with piece fish or meat. Coleslaw. Piece of fruit for after (3)
Tea - cottage pie with carrot, leek, onion and celery in it so at least one portion there served with cabbage & peas or sweet corn (3)
Snacks - few grapes small piece cheese, apple. (2) 10 TOTAL


B/Fast - yogurt & fruit. Juice (2)
Lunch - Pasta with mushrooms, onions, peppers in (count as 1) served with salad (1)
Tea - Curry add plenty of veg to it (1 portion) rice and serve with some tomato salsa (1)
Snack - few nuts & piece of fruit (2) 8 TOTAL


B/Fast -Fruit juice/smoothie (1) Beans on toast (beans count as 1) or cereal with added fruit (1)
Lunch - Veg or tomato soup (1 at least) have with egg & water cress or salad sandwich (1)
Tea - Lasagne with mushrooms, tomatoes, celery, peppers, grated courgette in (at least 1 portion) use a jar of passata or chopped tomatoes(1)
Serve with salad or coleslaw (1) to follow - Fruit salad (1) or ice cream with some fruit (1) or a fruit crumble (1)
Snacks - Celery & carrot sticks (1) small portion of sultanas or pineapple pieces (1) 9 TOTAL


B/Fast - Juice. Veg sausage with grilled tomatoes (1) mushrooms(1) and beans (1)
Lunch - Quiche add veg to it (1) with a salad (1)
Tea - Vegetable pie (could get 2 portions here easily) serve with sweet corn (1) Green beans (1)
Snacks -roasted red pepper puree (1) veg sticks (1) Few dried apricots 13 TOTAL

meritaten

I love veg and have at least five a day, summer coming and salad will be added. but, to be honest - I am not entirely sure just how much fruit or veg counts as a 'portion'. if a small handful of grapes is a portion........does a whole bunch count as your '5 a day'? cos I can easily eat that!
how much broccoli is a 'portion' for one person? the label just says 'counts as your five a day' - do you have to eat the whole thing?
I am a pretty experienced home cook and studied diet as my son was dairy allergic, but portion sizes are still a bit of a mystery to me, especially for fruit and veg and salad!

MoradoJess

meritaten wrote: »

I love veg and have at least five a day, summer coming and salad will be added. but, to be honest - I am not entirely sure just how much fruit or veg counts as a 'portion'. if a small handful of grapes is a portion........does a whole bunch count as your '5 a day'? cos I can easily eat that!
how much broccoli is a 'portion' for one person? the label just says 'counts as your five a day' - do you have to eat the whole thing?
I am a pretty experienced home cook and studied diet as my son was dairy allergic, but portion sizes are still a bit of a mystery to me, especially for fruit and veg and salad!

It's approximately 80 grams which for most fruit and veg works out to about a handful. The second page of this document has portion sizes for several fruits that is quite helpful.
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Documents/Downloads/5%20A%20DAY%20z%20card.pdf
A whole bunch of grapes would count technically count as all of your 5 a day but it is generally recommend to eat a variety of fruit and veg with more of a focus on the veg as they all have different vitamins and mineral levels in them. Plus I wouldn't really recommend eating a whole bag of grapes too often as it usually has an effect on toilet habits.

To be completely honest this 7 a day thing is being massively blown out of proportion by the media and it's making people worry. There is no scientific consensus on the perfect amount of fruit and veg to eat. The more the better, there's no point at which eating too much becomes bad for you. Because of this different countries have different recommendations on how much to eat. In Japan the recommended amount has been 7 for years. While at the other end of the scale a few years ago American congress made the headlines for ruling that pizza could be served in schools as a vegetable in school lunch programs because it has tomato sauce. Britain chose the 5 a day figure because at the time it was felt that if they suggested a higher figure the public wouldn't bother at all whereas with a more attainable figure such as 5 people would at least try to get it. What I'm trying to say is there's no magic number at which it makes you healthy and different research will tell you different things, just try to eat as much as you can and don't beat yourself up if you don't live up the guidelines.

Here's a couple of points that I think people can be unsure of:

-Juice counts (though only as 1 of your 5 a day)
-Smoothies count and are sometimes counted as more than 1 (check the label, basically anything you're making yourself will count as more than 1 as it has all the fibre in but some places market "smoothies" that are a fruit puree base and so will only count as 1)
-Frozen fruit and veg counts
-Tinned fruit and veg counts
-Dried fruit and veg counts
For all of the above I recommend always checking added sugar levels, buy fruit tinned in juice rather than syrup and keep an eye on juice and dried fruit in particular. They still count as your 5 a day even with added sugar but my dad has recently been diagnosed diabetic and I think often companies present things as super healthy because it's fruit and people don't realise just how much added sugar there is.

-Beans and pulses count (though only as 1 portion a day)

-Potatoes, cassava, yam, plantain DO NOT count

-Sweet potatoes, turnip, parsnip, swede DO count
I find an easy way to get more veg in is to replace potatoes with one of the above, for example I've seen parsnip and carrot mash done and sweet potato mash and sweet potato chips are so tasty (I know chips don't sound healthy but sweet potato chips baked in the oven aren't bad)

-If you're getting bored try to do something a little different with your food. I'm vegetarian and my meals have been so much more exciting since I stopped thinking of meat as something that needed replacing and instead let the veg shine for itself. Not suggesting you go veggie but I think veg is often thought of as the supporting character to a piece of meat and it can be so much more exciting than that.

-Try to snack on fruit and veg more.

That turned into a proper ramble . Sorry just kept thinking of things

mitchie.h

At home, during breakfast, we either have bagels/cereal/oatmeal/fruits fixed. At lunch, since everyone's out at work, my mum would just have a home made sandwich with soup and will have a feast during dinner since all are present.

Mostly my mum made sure that we have veggies on the side, meat and carbs every dinner. I remember she made me to do a 7 day dinner meal plan but that meal plan never worked out as sometimes she does not feel to cook a certain dish and will just make something up for dinner and surprises us

cookie9

In our household we all like fruit so that is easy but I am trying to increase our veg intake. Sneaky ways include:
1) grated courgette into bolognese ( or indeed any mince) as already add carrot , celery and onion,
2)also I am only making juice which has vegetables in it so carrot, apple and ginger is becoming a firm favourite,
3)snack pots in lunch boxes including dried fruit and nuts and
4) making savoury muffins eg courgette, red onion and cheese