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

asparagus1968

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!

exactly, this is where I'm struggling- we have a banana and fruit juice at breakfast, a piece of fruit after a packed lunch ,2 veg at least with dinner. these meals are already big enough???
we don't eat between meals,and don't eat desserts, may have to start these two things...

lostinrates

asparagus1968 wrote: »

exactly, this is where I'm struggling- we have a banana and fruit juice at breakfast, a piece of fruit after a packed lunch ,2 veg at least with dinner. these meals are already big enough???
we don't eat between meals,and don't eat desserts, may have to start these two things...

Why not a veg starter instead of a desert? Crudite is the star to many meals here because its both easy and delicious.

asparagus1968

Auntie_Sceb wrote: »

I think it's funny. Of course it's been known for a long time that eating a more varied diet of fruit and veg is good for you. % a day is recommended minimum.

But.... people measure their portions very differently. People who currently think they are having 5 portions aren't! You can only count fruit for 2 portions. Pulses for 1. Just because you have had 3 types of vegetables does not mean you have had 3 portions though it is good to have the variety.

So for the most part the only way to increase your portions is by eating vegetables as snacks otherwise you are increasing the amount you are eating not just your vegetable intake including other stuff not so good for you at the same time. I've just made some nice carrot and raisin cakes. 1 1/2 contain 1 adult fruit and veg portion but they also contain sugar and fat so high calorie. However if you are exchanging this for chocolate, crisps or cake without fruit/veg it's good but otherwise the benefits are questionable (though tasty). I think the message should be simple the more vegetables (?fruit) you can add to your diet the better.

I'm already vegetarian so if I add more veg to a pasta sauce for example I increase the variety of veg and make it go further but I won't be able to increase the portion of veg in it.

If I add carrot to mash potato (potatoes not 1 of 5 a day) I will may be get 1/2 a portion. If I did pure parsnip and carrot as mash I could count it as 1 of 5 a day (if 80g)

There is another thread discussing this:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4936479

This is the study the papers are referring to:

http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/20...13-203500.full

and two resources explaining portion size:

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

http://nhsforthvalley.com/health-ser...ion-resources/

great info,cheers

Auntie_Sceb

I found a way you may be able to increase your fruit/veg at lunch it depends what you are already eating. These are meals using 'Bento' lunch boxes. The site isn't aiming to increase your intake. It's trying to sell their product - but there are some good ideas for lunches

http://www.laptoplunches.com/bento-menus-season/Spring/

[Deleted User]

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Where on earth are you getting your calories figures from? Yes as far as I can see nuts do not count towards your 5/7 a day, but to get 1100 calories from at most 80g of nuts and 30g of dried fruit!

The issue in point was obtaining 2 portions of F&V by eating mixed nuts and raisins. You pointed out that a portion of dried fruit is 30g not 80g. So these for example, are 31% raisins. For two portions (60g) of raisins you will need 60/0.31= 194g of mixed nuts and raisins. The calorific value of the mixture is 509kcal/100g, so the helping will be 509*1.94= 987kcal.

The calorific value of body fat is 7.8kcal/g, so if you don't compensate by cutting out other foodstuffs, an excess of 987kcal/day would give you a weight gain of 987/7.8= 127g/day. Over a year that is 46kg, or 102lb, or 7.3 stone.

(The 1100kcals and 8 stone were based on Sainsburys mix which had only 28% raisins, but they seem to have withdrawn it since my last post.)

My F&V today:

Carrot: 70g/29kcal
Cauliflower: 250g/78kcal
Pineapple: 142g/65kcal
Kiwi: 70g/34kcal
Orange: 156g/67kcal

Total: 688g= 8.6 (80g) portions for 350kcal

MoradoJess

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

And what do you suspect is the reason for that? It's not because those foods are devoid of any nutritional value. If they were included officially some people would just carry on eating chips with every meal.

As we all know, spuds do contain nutrients or half the country would be suffering from scurvy! And they're not, are they?

I believe it's because either of the types or levels of nutrients cause them to be classed as a starchy food. I wasn't denying they do have nutritional value (for example high in fibre) but don't class as vegetables nutritionally.
It's not a far stretch to try and argue the same point for rice being a vegetable, both have nutrients and grow.

[Deleted User]

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Yes as far as I can see nuts do not count towards your 5/7 a day

I think you will find that the reason for that is not because nuts aren't vegetable, but because they are far too high in calories to make it feasible to get your ration of F&V from them. Nuts have the second highest calorific value of all, after pure fat. They contain twice as much fat as these cream buns. Five 80g portions of nuts is about 2600kcal.

terra_ferma

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

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.

I would say that if you start with increasing whatever you are using at the moment, it's a good step without making it a chore
Also you can use fresh fruit to make ice lollies (that's half a banana in one go), and fruit smoothies, both with no added sugar.

My personal view is that the number is meaningless as in theory it includes highly processed and/or less nutrient rich foods, for example shop-bought orange juice is not going to be the same as eating fresh oranges, without mentioning dried fruit and baked beans. It may be why they've had to increase it to 7, some of the foods included don't have enough vitamins etc

terra_ferma

jack_pott wrote: »

I think you will find that the reason for that is not because nuts aren't vegetable, but because they are far too high in calories to make it feasible to get your ration of F&V from them. Nuts have the second highest calorific value of all, after pure fat. They contain twice as much fat as these cream buns. Five 80g portions of nuts is about 2600kcal.

Another reason why the advice is flawed, they steer people towards eating dried fruit, e.g. raisins, and highly processed canned foods and fruit juice, but not nuts. It treats us like children who can't make good choices, and arbitrarily divides foods in good/bad instead of helping us make informed choices.
The 5-a-day motto has also been used as a marketing gimmick to sell foods that are actually nutritionally rather poor, but contain some fruit/veggies.
The food industry is too powerful for the government to be able to give the most appropriate advice, to eat fruit and veg in their simplest form, fresh if possible, or frozen/canned but unprocessed.

lostinrates

terra_ferma wrote: »

Another reason why the advice is flawed, they steer people towards eating dried fruit, e.g. raisins, and highly processed canned foods and fruit juice, but not nuts. It treats us like children who can't make good choices, and arbitrarily divides foods in good/bad instead of helping us make informed choices.
The 5-a-day motto has also been used as a marketing gimmick to sell foods that are actually nutritionally rather poor, but contain some fruit/veggies.
The food industry is too powerful for the government to be able to give the most appropriate advice, to eat fruit and veg in their simplest form, fresh if possible, or frozen/canned but unprocessed.

Here in old style, we are a self selecting group.

We are interested in 'home economics' which, whether we like food or not means we are interested to a degree in nutrition and value.

I believe there are people who for whatever reason have demonstrated inability to make consistantly good choices. Or even consistantly sort of ok choices.

For them a steer towards this is going to be beneficial ( if they take it) for others ...conversation like this is only going to see people make BETTER choices more easily I think. Edit.....I include those of us who already make ok choices fwiw ...it never hurts to have more ways to make things work more easily at ones disposal.