5+ a Day Challenge [Ideas and Support]

[GladiatorReady]

A supportive thread for anyone who wants to maintain or increase their veg and fruit intake! Whether you want to set your personal challenge to 1 a day, 5 a day, 10 a day or more, everyone is welcome to take part!

Post what you've had today, favourite recipes, tips and tricks, ask for ideas... anything you like.

One serving is equal to 80g or the approx equivalent

What counts as five-a-day?

Most of us known we should be eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day to help balance our diet, but what counts and how much is a 'portion'? Our nutritionist has all you need to know to reach your five-a-day

www.bbcgoodfood.com

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I always feel better when I do eat vegetables but when I get down they fall to the wayside, so I'm setting my target for now at 5 a day and I'll increase it once I've got that down.

 

[BettyCrockerr]

Fruit with breakfast - banana on toast, in porridge, fruit in muesli etc

Veg or fruit as a snack mid morning

veg as part of lunch and fruit as snack after lunch

Veg as large part of evening meal

fruit/veg smoothie

 

[dancingqueen5678]

I have a couple of tips:

• Bulk out meals with veg for example, if you eat meat, - for red, bulk out the meal with lentils or beans, for chicken - bulk out the meal with chickpeas.
• Buy frozen veg. It's just as healthy as fresh and can be used to chuck into any meal. Also you can buy some veg and freeze it. I buy onions and peppers and I will chop them up and freeze them in a little bag. I just pull them out when I need them.
• Watch out for smoothies as they are just free sugars and not healthy - I spoke about this on another thread but the sugar in fruit and veg is tied up with fibre which means it's released slowly and not a free sugar that will spike blood levels which you body will struggle with. When you blend/mash/puree any kind of fruit or veg you break the fibre bonds so you're just consuming sugar now which will make your blood sugar levels spike and then you'll crash and you're not getting the fibre which no one gets enough of but is vital in helping with gut bacteria, regular digestion, hormone levels etc.
• if you like a sweet treat try making your own with fruit. Some ideas, a fruit cheese cake with a nut base instead of biscuits and greek yoghurt instead of blended fruit, strawberries dipped in melted chocolate, baked banana/blueberry oats (I add cinnamon to mine to make it sweet),
• Veg soup is a good way to get a lot of veg into your diet. Make your own or buy some tins from a shop for days when you cba.
• Try making easy meals with veg for those days when you cba. For example, I make macaroni and cheese with peas and sweetcorn. They don't add much, if anything, to the taste but it's veg.
• Try veggie fingers or veggie burgers instead of nuggets etc. They are around the same price but it's a handy way to get veg when you just want to throw something in the oven.
• if you're buy out and getting drive thru, try getting veg with your meal, or veg as a side. The carrot and fruits bags from McDonalds are about 79p. If you go to subway get veg in the sandwich etc.
• 5-a-day is counted as 80g but if you have 40g of peas with 2 meals that counts as 1 and even if you're not hitting the standard amount for 5-a-day, 30g of a veg is better than none at all.
• watch out for dried fruit cause it's high in sugar