apparently....

[vernon]

and one glass of pure orange with bits in counts as one portion ....but does a second glass equal two ? :P

[sapphirelily10]

Don't know that the juice of an orange with a few bits in does count as a whole portion! :P. Think you have to eat a whole orange?!

Will await confirmation/denial of this by a nutrition expert :rolleyes: :P

Sapph :D

[Blue Cow]

And does a BLT count as 2 portions too? :unsure:

[mazza]

Hello!

As far as I know, it doesn't count if you have 5 glasses of orange for the quota. Don't know why, since one glass is one portion...so I don't think that 2 = 2 portions either - sorrreee. :)

Potatoes don't count either :sad: :lol: So bang goes the chips....

:D

[Blue Cow]

Hi HN

Potatoes are vegetables, but experts don't include them in the "eat 5 a day" recommendation.

The reason that you need to eat 5 a day is because fruit and vegetables are packed with different vitamins and antioxidants that help you achieve a healthy balanced diet (it's recommended that you eat 5 fruits and vegetables that are of differing colours to get the right mix)

Potatoes do contain significant levels of vitamin C, but as they are considered a "starchy" food, they are excluded.

[Annabel]

Hi folks, in fact a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice is counted as one portion of fruit, i read it in an official govt pamplet. so you could drink 5 glasses and fulfill your 'quota'. however, i have also read that really we should be eating more like 30 portions of fruit/veg per day...basically the idea is we should eat far less processed carbohydrates and meat products.

i found the thread on favourite snacks very interesting as most of them were processed carbs, and not much mention of fruit being a good snack!!!!!!

potatoes are not included because although they are veg, they way we cook them can make them very fatty (i.e. fried chips, roast potatoes, mash with loads of butter - you can see why the govt doesnt want to encourage us to eat more of em!)

by the way, the only vegetable that contains every single vitamin is the humble pea! so there you go, eat your peas!!!!

i know all this cos my daughter was learning about it at school and i also learned something from it!

[mazza]

I am at odds with you there Annabel, cos I read somewhere or heard on the radio - can't remember which - that you can't take 5 glasses of orange juice and say 'ta very much, my job's done for the day!' :blink:

It only counts as one - even if you drunk a vat! I don't know why, but it's to do with getting variety. S'pose it kinda defeats the object of the message to eat more fruit and veg if everyone just goes and quaffs pints of OJ only.

After all, how much is one glass??!!

Glad that the potato query has been answered though! It's all to do with being too starchy.

:D :P

[Mistyeyeddreamer]

I am at odds with you there Annabel, cos I read somewhere or heard on the radio - can't remember which - that you can't take 5 glasses of orange juice and say 'ta very much, my job's done for the day!'

I heard that somewhere too, Mazza. You should be eating five different fruits because they each contain something different. And a portion is as much as you can hold in one hand.

Misty

[hollygolightly]

So, I'm guessing that my intake of:

- 1 jacket potato
- 1 mashed potato (with lashings of butter)
- 1 portion of chips
- 2 glasses fresh orange

Doesn't fulfill the 5 a day rule...

:P :lol:

[Blue Cow]

Doesn't look like it Holly :sad:

But you've got a head start with the OJ :)

[sapphirelily10]

I see the debate still rages on :P :P :P

Hollygolightly.....doesn't quite cut it :P :lol:

Sapph

[Blue Cow]

BTW Holly - if you have baked beans on your jacket, then they count as one!!

[hollygolightly]

Yes, but if I have two portions of baked beans is that 2 of my quota of 5??? :blink: :lol: :blink:

[Beth]

a well known brand of beans (beginging with H!) actually put it on the side of the tin!

they do it on soup as well!

very helpful of them I think :lol:

[vernon]

do individual chips count? ...five chips :P

or a bag of crisps count as potatoe?

i really think i should eat better ;)

but had a rooley meal yestereve at friends .. bit ole steak [ sorry vegans!] cooked wit galric and herby stuff and red wine ...then with herby mild cheese on ...and mushroom and onion concoction with cashew nuts [ i think they were cashew] ..and some salad and a nice poppy seed roll .....a may be simple but at least i'm easily fed!!

:D

[hollygolightly]

Mmm, both those sound yummy.

HN, re: the wine. I'll go along with that...

:wine: :wine: :wine: :wine: :wine: See, it's that easy to get the required 5 :lol:

[Blue Cow]

Does a nice wine count as anything? (it's made from grapes)

HN - if it does then I think I may have had my 5 portions last night!

:wine:

[mazza]

Now then,

I have seriously been losing sleep over the members' dietary habits here and saw fit to sort this matter out once and for all! :P

Wine and grapes indeed!! Tsk! :frown: :lol:

Everything you all need to know is here NFHiB members eating much healthier now! (http://www.doh.gov.uk/fiveaday/portions.htm)

And the conclusive answer is that you can't fulfil your requirements by drinking 5 glasses of OJ - sorry :( .


:D B)

[Beth]

aaaaaawwwwwwww

how dreary :(

who wants to eat 6 prunes a day? and it only counts as one portion!

you have burst my bubble Mazza :cry:

off to look in the fridge! :P

(Holly.....chips definalty do not count!!) :lol:

[hollygolightly]

Oh, I get it now :lol:

If I have a curry with: 3 tablespoonfuls of cooked carrots, 3 tablespoonfuls of cooked peas, 3 tablespoonfuls of cooked sweetcorn, chick peas, 1 tablespoon of raisins, I'm sorted. :thumbs:

Only joking :P .

[Blue Cow]

But tomato puree does - so pizza counts - :D :pizza:

And if you put some onion, green pepper, sweetcorn and mushrooms on it - then you've done it!!

Wash it down with some OJ - and you're ahead of the game!! :lol:

Or is that cheeky?? :unsure:

[Annabel]

B)

I think the trouble is that we eat too much processed food, and this contains too much salt, too little fibre and far too much carbohydrate. if you stopped to think how much processed carb you ate you would probably find it made up the vast proportion of your daily intake.

simple carbs give you an immediate energy boost but this doesnt last long, other than that there is not much benefit to be had from them. if you overdo the carbs you end up putting on weight, regardless of whether you are eating a low fat diet.

I think the idea behind these 5 portions a day is to encourage people to eat more raw food, which fruit is. it takes quite abit more effort to munch an apple than it does to eat a biscuit, but you will get more out of in terms of health benefits if you do make the effort.

[mazza]

Hi HN - I'm not offended at all :) .

I do agree with you!

I am not the paragon of virtue at all!

I think that the Government is trying to make the public a little more aware of the importance of fruit and veg in their daily diet.

I don't think it necessarily means that we must stop what we are doing and just eat our veg and forsake our carbohydrates, but incorporate more fruit and veg into our diets - which is fair enough in principle. :)

I do agree wholeheartedly that the price of fruit & veg is very often prohibitively expensive - I would love to get more in, but find I have to walk on by the greengrocery and forsake many fresh items.

Plus the quality is often questionable and goodness knows what sort of residues are in it. If you buy organic, that's nice, but it's so expensive and still might not be of any particular quality.

I heard the other day that Scotland has the highest incidence of obese children in the world apart from Italy and Malta (and England isn't much further down the list) :o . How disgraceful is that? But it is symptomatic of the lifestyles in the UK - many people have no time to prepare fresh meals, neither can they afford all the ingredients.

By simply adding a handful of peas , or carrot, or a glass of OJ is merely scratching the surface of the nation's appaling eating habits.

So I would say that Holly's Curry and Blue Cow's pizza are a healthy option all in all.

:D

[Annabel]

Hazelnut

I absolutely love those macaroni pies! and the yum yums ( you can get them in marks and spencer you know!)

if you have a macaroni pie it keeps you going for a long time, and that is the thinking behind a lot of scottish grub, it had to keep the hardy farmworkers going all day...of course nowadays that kind of intensely calorie laden food is too much for us and our more sedentary lifestyles, but whoops there you go, we are addicted to it as it is so comforting and tasty.

i do feel strongly that we should only eat fruit and veg in season and as much of it as possible should be british. i can assure you this would make food cheaper. if we will insist on eating strawberries in december, flown in from the usa, we are going to always be paying over the odds.

i also really object to how certain fruits have become 'premium' products for example, melons. melons are supposed to be the size of footballs, and water melons even bigger. yet over the years these fruits have become smaller and smaller and extremely pricey. and they taste of nothing. a similar thing is happening with pumpkins and squashes. this is not what fruit and veg is about. they are trying to manufacture and process a natural foodstuff which is all wrong in my opinion.

and yet i am no angel, i eat as much junk as anyone else, especially if i am rushing or under pressure. yet what could be more convenient than grabbing a banana or an apple instead of a chocolate bar or packet of crisps? i wish i could crack this problem, i really do. i put it down to very bad habits started from a very young age..my mum wasnt a great cook and she ran her own Chippy, so guess where i got most of my food from???? and i am still living with the consequences!!!!!

[Beth]

did you see that programme on sunny delight last night?

I stopped drinking SD years ago when I found out it was proctor and gamble (they animal test)

but knowing how much sugar and the fact its got vegtable oil in...yyyyyuuuuuuuuuccckkkkkk :crazy:

nasty

I tohught it was quite amuzing when the spokesperson said "we have now upped the juice to 15% " :lol: it was only 5% before!!

[Annabel]

:banghead:

Dont start me off about that Sunny Delight stuff. it is absolutely vile! :angry: IMO i would rather let my kid drink coke all day rather than that concoction of chemicals !!! the vegetable oil (cellulose) is the thickener i believe. how they have got away with touting it as healthy i do not know, and WHY anyone would want it when there are some truly lovely real fruit juices out there is beyond me.
:blink:

Well seeing as I have started, the other 'healthy food' i think is a disgrace are Winders. :angry: i bought them initially for my daughter because she is not a breakfast cereal fan and these things were all stacked up in the breakfast cereal section. i honestly thought they were like nutrigrain or the like. i was absolutely horrified when i saw what they actually are...basically a long very thin strip of gelatine with fruit juice in it, all rolled up so from the packet you would think it was a squashy cereal type bar. IMO they are just sweets and should be in with the confectionary.

of course my daughter absolutely loved them and she nagged me intensely for quite a long time each time we were in the shops to get her more, but i have totally banned them, no way. :no::talktohand:

[Beth]

good for Annabel!

Parents need to be firm with kids sometimes, after all you would let them eat chemicals out of a science lab, this way the chemicals are just labelled prettily!

I tried those fruit winders once, didnt realise what they were, and was gutted as I am a veggie!
Matthew ate the rest!!
not had them in the house since

[Blue Cow]

Along the Sunny D lines - (OMG - wouldn't touch the stuff)...


....but my son and I have just "discovered" PJ Smoothies from the supermarket and they are really lovely. He can't get enough of them, and they don't contain anything nasty.

[Red1]

what if you have more than the five, does that mean you can have less tomorrow? :unsure:

[Red1]

pieces of fruit that is.

Whats in a PJ smoothie?

[Red1]

ok Harley just told me Pineapple Juice, It has to be the Lem-sips, I'm off to bed before he gets another one on me.

:blink:

[Annabel]

Red, your avatar is wicked!!! :notworthy: :thumbs:

[troika]

I'm with u annabel, i've banned sunny d in this house too! *way* too much junk in there for my liking, and although the kids nag constantly for it at a supermarket i'll never give in, it's the only time i've seen my kids have a hyper episode was after that stuff :angry:

and to all those meat eaters - carry on.. and leave all them lovely veggies for meeeee!! hehe 8-10 portions of fruit and veggies a day for me please!!