The Ten a Day challenge, join me

Rowan9

Thanks for this thread. I've really enjoyed reading how folks are getting/ aiming for their ten a day.
I usually get 7 upwards I think, more on days I'm not at work as I have home made soup for lunch and more fruit with my porridge for breakfast. I find that I digest this more easily than when I'm rushing around.
I also add veg to whatever I'm cooking and also serve it alongside things like baked potatoes and beans. It's usually red cabbage, broccoli, carrots and something green leafy either kale or spring greens. Others possibly have salad with that.
Tonight it's pasta with a tomato sauce and I've added garlic, mushrooms, spring greens, peas and will add spinach when it's nearly done.
I also make smoothies. You can get through loads of fruit and veg with them.
Looking forward to reading more on this thread

Prinzessilein

I love my fruit and veggies, and 5 a day has never been a problem.

10 a day will have two major problems...firstly it will be expensive (I am on benefits and getting a good variety of fruit and veg can be tough on a budget....especially when you live without a budget supermarket - (hoping Lidls reopens soon!) and the only supermarkets in town are M&S - excellent if a little expensive, but no where near as much as people think!....and a small, rubbish Tesco.....oh and the outdoor market has been reduced to one stall!)....and secondly, I am on the 5:2 and on fasting days I only eat 500 Kcals and 10 portions of fruit and veg would use up that limit without difficulty!

Still, I'm happy to pop in here for inspiration on the other 5 days!

Breakfast: oats and raisins soaked in home made joghurt overnight, chopped banana and seeds added in the morning....2 portions (assuming you are still allowed one portion of the 10 to be dried fruit?)

Lunch: Cucumber, celery, carrot and pepper sticks dipped into home made humus, one slice homemade bread toasted with tomato and cheese 3 portions? (one tomato isn't a portion, don't know if each veg was a portion, so I'm guestimating here!)

Dinner: Smoked Haddock, mustard sauce, sweet potato wedges, peas, kale 2 portions ( could be 3...I didn't measure the peas and kale!)

Snacks: 2 satsumas, a piece of chocolate brownie (it was baked with beetroot does that count????)...and a salted caramel vodka planned for later....1 portion

So, that is a conservative 8...could have been a 9....I am happy with that!

One thing I want to concentrate on is upping the veggies and curbing the fruits!

PasturesNew

I'm up to 4 portions today ... but I've had to eat two whole days-worth of meals and an entire cake to get there.

I need to "tweak" my methods a bit I think

Brekkie: Planned eggs/toast. Added ½ a can of beans.
Lunch: Planned Pie/mash/peas. Added 80g carrots and upped the peas to 80g.

That was going to be it ... so to try harder I baked (and ate) an entire cake, so I could fit in a portion of sultanas It was really 3-4 portions of cake... but I managed it all...

katkin

Like all the cool cats on a Saturday night I'm just doing my menu plan, shopping list and working out calories etc to go for the 10x day and I'm mentally trotting up the nice to haves and realising this may be costly.

However if I reduce meat it may balance out fine. A work in progress still! Alas I've already bought and frozen lists of meat etc for the freezer..

My hubby won't be amused, I'll try and slip it in hoping he won't notice but he already moans about the amount of veg I put in our meals! Though he will eat it, that's our deal

patchwork_cat

If you are a family of 4 this would be 3.2 kg per day, over 20 kg per week, can you imagine bringing that home on the bus!

Winchelsea

Lesson Learned, my son's GF comes from Okinawa, and she cooks him amazing meals, including dried mushrooms that she has brought from home - maybe they are the special ones you mentioned.
Anyway, it must be doing DS some good!

He shares the cooking btw, so is no doubt picking up lots of ideas!

Rosemary7391

Just a thought. How frequently would folks repeat vegetables? If you only have each once a week, that's 70 different veggies! I could so easily have onion, mushroom and tomatoes every day though, that probably isn't ideal either...

Pop_Up_Pirate

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

Just a thought. How frequently would folks repeat vegetables? If you only have each once a week, that's 70 different veggies! I could so easily have onion, mushroom and tomatoes every day though, that probably isn't ideal either...

The theory behind micro-nutrient diets is that you intake 10 different vegetables/fruits a day from different groups because not only do they contain a main nutrient, such as an orange has vitamin c, they also contain tons of other nutrients that all work together to prevent/cure illnesses.

The groups are:
3 portions of green leaves (spinach, lettuce, kale, herbs etc)
3 portions of sulfurs (mushrooms, cabbage, broccoli etc)
3 portions of colours (carrots, tomatoes, blueberries etc)
1 from starches, which include peas, corn, potatoes, squash. beans, etc

These 10 portions contains the RDA of many of the vital nutrients needed PLUS many many more unknown/un-named micro nutrients.

You can have more or less the same every day although it is beneficial to change or add in a new veggie now and then simply because they will contain additional nutrients besides the main vitamin.

Generally speaking, if the food is in a tin, or processed it doesn't count because the cooking, pasteurising, addition of salts/sugars/stabilisers etc destroy the nutrients and/or prevent absorption.

Pop_Up_Pirate

melanzana wrote: »

A fizzy multivitamin from Aldi about a pound for twenty. Sorted.

Fekk sake, all this Nanny State stuff is boring. One sponsored College research graduate after another espousing this and that, well they have to justify their existence after all and come up with something I suppose. But we don't have to listen either!

Five a day is achievable. Anything else is a bonus but not an imperative.

Your multi-vitamin from Aldi will be next to useless.
Not all supplements are equal and unfortunately, the vitamins found on most supermarket shelves or high street 'Health Shops' are cheap, synthetic, and contain nasty fillers.

If you want supplements to do the job of food, then find ones that are natural, contain no gluten or sugar fillers, are the kind the body absorbs.

Take Zinc, for example, which many are deficient in and its essential for overall wellbeing, protects against reproductive organ problems/pregnancy problems, cellular health, strengthen immune system, skin conditions and is good for hair and nail health.

Most zinc in multivits is in a Zinc sulfate or zinc oxide form which doesn't pass through into cells very well and most of it just passes through the body and is flushed down the toilet. The extra work the body does to get rid of the zinc oxide adds stress, which is counter-productive.
Zinc should be in a chelated form, which means it is attached to an amino acid and can pass through cell walls.

If you want to use supplements, and lets face it, no matter how good they are they will never be as good as an organic food source, buy the best forms and limit them to the essentials - vitamin D3 (always with K2), magnesium, zinc, omega 3 and B12.

[Deleted User]

Thinking about this yesterday I had a banana for breakfast Lunch included two oranges and a strawberry yogurt, and dinner last night had meat in a braised burgundy sauce, potatoes, broccoli, and steamed cabbage followed by another orange so probably only 8 bits of fruit and veg I suppose it does mount up but I think I would be a bit hard pushed to have 10 a day.
Today will be probably another banana perhaps with cereal for breakfast,lunch will be a small salad of cheese,lettuce,tomato,cucumber,beetroot.Dinner tonight will include potato,and at least two veg as I am at my Dds for my evening meal I'll probably have an orange when I come home though so it will be around 8 again.I think sometimes I don't realise how much F&V I actually do eat When I saw the title of the post I though no way could I get rthrough that amount ,but I do :) but there again about a third of my food budget is F&V even though I eat meat as well.