Getting your 5 fruit & veg a day

Today

Brekkie
Glass of grapefruit juice (1)

Lunch/snacks (minimum 80g of fresh to count)
Carrot 85g
Lebanese Cucumber 100g
Nectarine (100g)
Kiwi fruit (90g)
Tomatoes 90g (5 total)

Evening meal
Veggie bowl apparently counts as 2 (this is on the back of the packaging but in suspect however they can't make false claims without being prosecuted, so 2 it is)
Corn on the cob (1)

Total is 9 but I had way too much natural sugar apparently (28g over the allowance) and I was slightly over on my calorie intake as well (though my target is only 1,280kcals). I suspect I need to cut back on the amount of fruit I consume. Grapefruit juice, nectarine and kiwi fruit today and I often have a 4th portion, plus there's 20g of blueberries in there as well. Doesn't count towards a portion of veg/fruit a day but my calorie counting app records the sugars in it.
 
Wonder how accurate cal per 100g exactly are, as each crop should have a slightly different amount depending on the fact that it's way to hard to cultivate soil with the same minerals over a big field. Well I guess it's just not worth the effort.

Scientists say variety is also important to at least try to get all the vitamins, they suggest the rainbow plate, from each color one portion.
 
PabloLerntKochen said:
Wonder how accurate cal per 100g exactly are, as each crop should have a slightly different amount depending on the fact that it's way to hard to cultivate soil with the same minerals over a big field. Well I guess it's just not worth the effort.
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Not everything is grown in soil nowadays. In fact quite a bit is now grown in hydroponic greenhouses, so it is controlled. Massive greenhouses all set aside for them so that everything is controlled to within a mm of the plants' lives. So those sort of things will be pretty consistent across crops because they know exactly what they are being given.

And to be honest, over 1 large field or even in the same "farm", things will be reasonably consistent (water excluded) due to fertilisers and pesticides being sprayed. Most soils in modern farming are so depleted that they have to add to them constantly. Land isn't given the time to recover and rest that it used to get. Soils are sadly very depleted of many things like iodine and selenium, boron and others.

It's stuff grown at home that will be much more variable from the 'standard' figures given. Given how much sweeter my home grown tomatoes are compared to supermarket ones I don't doubt that per 100g they probably have more sugar in them.

But it isn't calories that getting you 5 a day is about. It is fibre and flavanoids, rarer elements, antioxidants, and vitamins that's the important part of 5 a day (as a minimum). The calories are almost incidental because carrots broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, celery etc don't exactly have a lot of calories in them.
 
Not quite such a good day today.

Brekkie = 1 (grapefruit juice)
Lunch = 1 (large nectarine)
Snacks = 2 (100g Lebanese cucumber, large carrot)
Evening meal = 1½ (only the radish count because I'd already eaten a cucumber earlier, plus half portion of garden peas)

That's 5½, so it will do. It does mean I came in under my daily calorie allowance though which is a big win.
 
I've been doing OK on getting my 5 a day but I'm not so certain hubby has been. He's been complaining about being hungry! Lol. Anyhow he was at home today (working the morning and night, but had the afternoon off as TOIL to take me shopping and to a medical appointment).

So Brekkie
Grapefruit juice (1)
sorry hubby but those 20g of blueberries don't count.
Lunch
20cm length of cucumber (my 1)
Hubby had a banana (his 1)
Evening meal
Aubergine (1)
Courgettes & onions (1)
Red pepper & tomatoes (1)
Carrots (1)
Green beans (1)

7 each will do. I've cut back on my fruit at the moment. It's always higher in summer but then it drops off when red berries get too expensive (or are not available from the garden).
 
Found an interesting article, it's quite funny how intense the discussion on diet can be and there's a lot of good information in this article. Would be nice, if the author wouldn't write so dramatic, but guess he wouldn't appeal to the masses if not.
What makes me wonder is, it seems more like a fight between two beliefs where nobody could win with a science based fact.

Why you shouldn't eat veggies.

As I was raised by rather poor people and they've consumed tons of veggies and carbs, I wouldn’t change my current lifestyle, and depending on the world population there wouldn't be any argument to not fill your fuel with cheap plants
 
PabloLerntKochen said:
Found an interesting article, it's quite funny how intense the discussion on diet can be and there's a lot of good information in this article. Would be nice, if the author wouldn't write so dramatic, but guess he wouldn't appeal to the masses if not.
What makes me wonder is, it seems more like a fight between two beliefs where nobody could win with a science based fact.

Why you shouldn't eat veggies.

As I was raised by rather poor people and they've consumed tons of veggies and carbs, I wouldn’t change my current lifestyle, and depending on the world population there wouldn't be any argument to not fill your fuel with cheap plants
Click to expand...
It won't load for me. I am guessing given the name chinadialogue that it is a restricted or monitored site over here.

But this thread isn't the place for debating Western health practices, but for people (mostly me it seems) to keep tabs on getting enough fruit and veg to aid warding off bowl cancers. Having watched a friend's mother die from it in our own home (they were homeless at the time and we had spare rooms) it is not something I want to die from.

And with me dieting at present it is even more important to me for me to keep tabs on it. Some of my pain meds cause constipation so I try to keep my "5 a day"much higher.
 
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