"Eat 7 portions of fruit/veg a day"

Not sure if any of you have read/seen the news this morning, but health researchers have suggested that eating 7 portions of fruit and veg a day prolongs life and reduces the risk of certain illnesses.

The news story is here for any of those who wish to read it - BBC News - Seven-a-day fruit and veg 'saves lives'

The research goes a bit further to suggest that actually vegetables are preferable to fruit and there are mixed messages regarding whether fruit juices, baked beans etc can count towards your 7-a-day. Current health advice in Australia advises on 2 portions of fruit a day and 5 portions of veg. Some people interviewed this morning were even going so far as to say the advice should say 10 portions!

As we all know, the Extra Easy plan on Slimming World is definitely one of the best diets/healthy eating plans out there in terms of following this advice. Naturally if 1/3 of all your meals was "superfree" and you snacked primarily on superfree between meals, you would easily hit the 7 portions a day.

It got me thinking... if one portion of fruit and veg is 80g (a large piece of fruit or a handful of smaller fruit and veg), how many portions of fruit and veg do you reckon you consume in a day on average following Slimming World?

I dont eat fruit so have to rely on veg to get my five a day so not sure how I would get on having to have more than five

Really? I reckon I have about 7 portions a day. 2 with breakfast, 2 with lunch, 2 with dinner and then some snacks in between! I don't really snack too much though, if I was a bigger snacker, I'd def have more! x

Oh I don't know how much I eat, but I'm sure it's more than 5. There are other countries which say the minimum should be 10.

I'm going to look at my diary & see how much I do actually eat.

I probably manage 5 a day. This suits me fine as put with meals and an afternoon snack.

I agree with the news reports saying fruit and veg would need to be cheaper or subsidised in order to afford more. Aldi super 6 usually saves me some money. But my favourite fruit is grapes and never cheap.

Like Seadie, I don't eat fruit, maybe just the odd handful of grapes once in a while. I do 5 veg per day fine, but I think 7 portions might be hard for me to fit in.

I don't snack on veg and a bowl of salad is supposed to be classed as just one portion, and I'd count a bowl of veg soup or a pasta sauce as just 2, so if I was to try to fit the extra 5 portions (which is supposed to be over 80g per portion) of veg on my evening meal, it would mean getting through 400g of veg and wouldn't leave any room for anything else!

Maybe I could try to force myself to eat more fruit and try to have the extra 2 portions as fruity snacks instead.

I know someone who counts 2 sprouts or 3 slices of carrot as a 'portion', she insists she has 5 portions on her dinner already, it's 5 in variety, but in reality it's nearer to just two in volume, so maybe people need to be more informed on portion sizes and what actually counts as a portion before increasing the volume. x

Choc covered strawberries are my new cheeky way of squeezing in some superfree snacks! xx

Well today I plan to eat 8 portions of veg and at least 3 portions of fruit. I find it easy on sw to eat my five a day or even 7 a day

I treated this news, the same way that i treat news that you having a certian amlount of red meat/cheese/eggs/wine/pulses/etc will mean you lose/gain weight or develop/avoid illness.

It's typical newspaper filler based off one finding from one study that 99 times out of a hundred turns out to be either biased or badly done.

I think anything that makes people look at their eating habits and/or increase their intake of fruit and vegetables is undoubtedly a fantastic thing.

Since going veggie I noticed 100% improvement. I was commonly having 5/6 portions on EE. On green I normally have 10/11 so either way I reckon I'm ok because apart from breakfast the majority of that is veg based and the fruit I do have is fresh. They said in that article that canned fruit and even frozen fruit wasn't as beneficial but I wonder if they are right about frozen because unless it has anything added I can't see the difference to freezing fresh fruit yourself at home.

I was surprised about the frozen fruit. The most common frozen fruits are berries which tend to contain less sugar than other fruit.

In the times the explanation is that maybe it could be because people who eat a lot of frozen fruit because it's cheaper may not have a high standard of living so there could be other factors involved.

The article I saw suggested 10 a day rather than five. I can have 7 superfree foods in one meal lol

They've put an article up with portion sizes today. Should YOU be eating 7-a-day? | Mail Online

On a 100%, really good SW day I probably eat between 7 and 11 portions.

1-2 with breakfast (mushrooms, or loads of berries)
2-3 with lunch
1-2 as a snack (BIG portion of fruit)
3-4 with dinner.

Probably more if you counted non-superfree veg like peas, beans and potatoes.
I am pescetarian though which does help!

I was also surprised about the frozen fruit - sometimes frozen veg has MORE vitamins in it because it's frozen straight from the field rather than sitting around for days.

I think I'm probably having between 8-10 portions a day. Aren't we supposed to eat a rainbow as well? (Lots of different colour fruit/veggies rather than an actual rainbow...or skittles. Hmmm skittles.)

Skittles; that was TASTE the rainbow, not EAT it. That way you could lick them and put them back in the packet. That's why I'm not allowed back in Tesco.....bit of an overreaction if you ask me

lickthelid said:

Skittles; that was TASTE the rainbow, not EAT it. That way you could lick them and put them back in the packet. That's why I'm not allowed back in Tesco.....bit of an overreaction if you ask me

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Arf! The urban dictionary says that Taste the rainbow means having a gay experience, which sounds nice...and puts your post into a whole new level of hilarity for me.

Yes I always have my gay experiences in Tesco. The clubcard points are excellent. I'm saving up for a paddling pool