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

MaddyWaddy

I always refer to the NHS
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/Whatcounts.aspx

It is do-able but you need to be creative with what you eat and I mix mine up a lot so I don't get bored

Breakfast: scrambled eggs with beans (I have mushrooms too but probably not the 14 to count)

Lunch: large salad (2 easily)

Dinner: Meal plus 3 veggies (80g each)
Snacks: 3 Fruit or more if it is smaller fruit

Total 8

If you are having pasta sauce add lots of onions, mushrooms and peppers but my opinion would be to increase it gradually rather than all at once.

Portion sizes are here ...

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages/Portionsizes.aspx

lostinrates

Auntie_Sceb wrote: »

lostinrates - that is why I said veg snacks not fruit. I think I rarely hit 5 portions a day though I try to eat a varied diet I would find it hard to eat more. But looking at other people's 'portions' I would probably score 7. For example a bowl of salad is 1 portion not several.

Well when you read the study participants self reported and then the portions were calculated from their self reports. So this is quite a major flaw in the study.

The researchers say themselves "The main limitation is that measurement of fruit and vegetable intake occurred at only one point in time and relies on self-report. There may be social desirability bias and random error (forgetting) in the recall of fruit and vegetable consumption." (Oyebode, Gordon-Dseagu, Walker and Mindell 2014)

Another interesting observation was that those eating more fruit and vegetables were generally healthier anyway:

"Those who consumed more fruit and vegetables were generally older, less likely to smoke and more likely to be women, in a non-manual household, with degree level education. The proportion of study participants who were vigorously active in the last 4 weeks increased as more portions of fruit and vegetables were consumed."
(Oyebode et al 2014)

They did consider where people were getting their intake from to a point finding those eating tinned and frozen fruit were at higher risk of death than others though the study does not conclude why this is and considers other factors may be to blame.

I agree with a lot of your points. . The point about the portion of salad I am not sure of.

My understanding is the portion depends not what it is served in ( joke) but the size and diversity of the portion. So a medium bowl of lettuce is going to be a portion, but a bowl of the same size is going to have weightier content of say, chopped salad, with more diverse content and will be at least two, possibly more......depending on weight of ingredients. I would suggest the large salads I might serve as a main course are far more than a portion, or even two, of veg a day ( based on 80 gram serving.)


I should say, I am fairly au fait with what I prep for us, because I have to keep a food diary for my supplementation plan/consultants due to my health condition. I cannot be absolutely sure because I record why I eat, not what I serve to others, but my basis on what to eat three days a week minimum is on what to feed others and how I can make that work for me ( or not) not the other way around).

Having been off veg in the main for almost four months over winter ( on medical plan) I can tell you it was the hardest componant of a diet to give up.

I fundamentally believe diversity and balance is pretty important in normal diets, As supervised as I am they think i might have a grevious lack of something ATM...caused by their plan:rotfl:

Auntie_Sceb

Yes I agree a salad bowl is variable but I'm just thinking of my carrot cakes. Two medium sized grated carrots was 100g. That's quite a lot. If you're talking lettuce you're going to need a lot.

Just realised the NHS Forth Valley leaflet link was broken. I'll try again (it's a PDF).

This one is for fruit:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsforthvalley.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F02%2FEat-a-variety-of-fruit...as-part-of-your-5-a-day.pdf&ei=ncJCU4P8Cc-GhQfx2YHwDg&usg=AFQjCNHnD70W43aw39I_kfeXw5zcCFY0Ug&sig2=3Wf4ctr88YPYK52SSSQ_QQ&bvm=bv.64125504,d.ZG4

This one for vegetables:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDkQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnhsforthvalley.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F02%2FEat-a-variety-of-vegetables...as-part-of-your-5-a-day.pdf&ei=y8RCU9SLAs-AhAeki4CoBw&usg=AFQjCNFxlbhJD_GkaeqsupFB-klW4zqnpg&sig2=0B6Cniw934qz3XnBpIesmA&bvm=bv.64125504,d.ZG4

lostinrates

Auntie_Sceb wrote: »

Yes I agree a salad bowl is variable but I'm just thinking of my carrot cakes. Two medium sized grated carrots was 100g. That's quite a lot. If you're talking lettuce you're going to need a lot.



]

Oh, agree, absolutely. . And the less chopped a leaf is the more room it takes up on a plate but the less once chewed and the less 'in it' nutritionally or to fill one up. ( a good reason that some might be hungry after a big salad, is they haven't actually eaten much at all!).

Fwiw, chopped salads, or even forgetting lettuce for a bit and being a bit more inventive is a big way to challenge this this I think.

gayleygoo

I wonder if there are many people who get confused by the "rules" of fruit and veg portioning? There seem to be so many - only 2 a day can be fruit, beans only count if you are having other protein etc... If I eat a big bunch of grapes, I call that 2-3 portions. Two apples in one day? Two portions. I've eaten the family sized bowl of fruit salad? Yep, that's my quota for the day

The strangest one yet is possibly "salad is only one portion" -what does that even mean? Maybe if it's just some token greenery on your plate or in a sandwich... but I often have a big lunchtime salad with lots of lettuce, a tomato, scallion, beetroot, a whole grated carrot, peppers and whatever else I can find in the fridge. That's at least 4 portions in my mind, if not more!

meritaten

I too don't get this fruit can only count as two portions and veg three malarkey! what does your body do, ignore the 'excess' portions? I think that's rubbish espeicially if they now want us to eat 7 - 10 portions!

lostinrates

meritaten wrote: »

I too don't get this fruit can only count as two portions and veg three malarkey! what does your body do, ignore the 'excess' portions? I think that's rubbish espeicially if they now want us to eat 7 - 10 portions!

I think the point with fruit might be ( guessing) so steer us to the least 'sugary' options.


Remember also diversity is encouraged by one thing only counting and the phrase I find easiest way to look at the day 'eat a rainbow'


Again though, I agree, I am not going to be over anxious if my fruit intake is higher than two out of seven other healthy choices for me, but my chocolate/doughnut/chips etc remains nil:D

Auntie_Sceb

meritaten wrote: »

they now want us to eat 7 - 10 portions!

Just worth noting 'they' do not want us to eat 7-10 portions. A flawed study with participants self reporting what they have eaten has been put in to the news by reporters. The NHS recommends a minimum of 5 portions of fruit and veg a day.

Here is the NHS's response to the study:

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/04april/pages/five-a-day-should-be-upped-to-seven-a-day.aspx

Interestingly people are happy to accept the NHS 5 a day guidance but not what the NHS say is a portion. That I find funny.

Personally I think everything in moderation. I know I could do better on the fruit and veg front. I also know that my intake is better than many.

I think if you are swapping chocolate for fruit great. (Even if it's a tasty homemade carrot cake!).

But if you're counting all your 5 a day in one type of fruit you're not getting the mix of nutrients required. But if you never ate fruit or veg previously this would be an improvement.

Lizling

patchwork_cat wrote: »

A study that askes people what fruit and vegetables they ate on ONE day and then extrapolates to all cause mortality is IMO very flawed!

Self-reporting is very problematic, yes, but the only way to get 66,000 participants. Wouldn't you expect that about half the diets on that one day would be better than that person's average and half would be worse, rather like getting roughly equal odds and evens from tossing a die 60 thousand times? They didn't extrapolate all cause mortality - they collected all the data on it.

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Not all tinned fruit is in syrup, we always buy in juice, but to have statistics saying it INCREASES risk of death by 17%, is frankly flawed. You say that it is indicative of possibly poor diet, well then they haven't factor other foods in, have they.

No one said all tinned fruit was in syrup. They never claimed to have factored in other foods.

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Quote from the report author re the 17% increase - “The negative health impacts of the sugar may well outweigh any benefits. Another possibility is that there are confounding factors that we could not control for, such as poor access to fresh groceries among people who have pre-existing health conditions, hectic lifestyles or who live in deprived areas

Therefore admitting that they have a number of pertinent issues not accounted for. They have obviously not adjusted sufficiently for socio economic status.

Of course they can't control for every possible variable. I explicitly said that! I'm not sure how you can conclude that they haven't sufficiently adjusted for socio-economic status unless you've studied and understood their methodology.

patchwork_cat wrote: »

If a study determines that you have a 17% increase risk of death from eating tinned/ frozen fruit it is a flawed study.

It didn't determine this at all (even though lazy reporting on it probably did suggest this.) It determined that eating tinned/ frozen fruit is ASSOCIATED with a 17% increase risk of death, which is totally different. No statistical test can ever show causation - only correlation. Causation is only shown by figuring out the science behind the mechanism and testing it. However, when all the rest of the results show a consistent pattern (as they do for more veg corresponding to lower mortality), 1 weird result like this shows that there's likely to be a confounding variable particularly effecting this bit. For example, tinned fruit being bought by people not able to access fresh good easily. But that's just an idea. You'd need a further study to test that.

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Reports like this can score an own goal as only 1 in 5 manages to eat 5 a day( which we know is an arbitrary figure) and it dilutes the 5 a day message as dissenters will say 'see they can't make their minds up my Grandma never touched an apple and lived to be 85'. It will cause anxiety for others who have been trying to eat the 5 a day.

A study finds what it finds. Sometimes that's not what we might have hoped it would find, but the findings don't change because people find it difficult/too expensive/even impossible to eat so many. It is not the same thing as a government recommendation (which has not changed.)

asparagus1968

Billie-jo wrote: »

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 grapessmall 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 -roastedred pepper puree (1) veg sticks (1) Few dried apricots 13 TOTAL

thank you:A