http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26818377
So there you have it - eat your veggies and live longer. Interesting that dried fruit seems better than fresh.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26818377
So there you have it - eat your veggies and live longer. Interesting that dried fruit seems better than fresh.
Load of rubbish. Now seven pies and seven pints . . .
My problem is getting that amount in to my daily diet. According to the study, the most benefits were from 7-10 portions per day and each portion is a large fruit or a handful of anything else. That means quite a large amount of fruit and veg!
I usually manage one portion at breakfast, a couple at lunch and a couple for dinner so I'm not bad with it, but fitting another 5 in is extremely unlikely.
Banana for breakfast, apple after work; large bowl of spicy courgette, red pepper and onion Quinoa pillau for tea plus two pints of hoppy North Country ale and I've just about scraped in :)
I'm vegetarian and I'm going to struggle to get that much in each day!
A green smoothie is the answer....
The Australian "2 + 5" recommendation is two 150 gm portions of fruit and five 75 gm portions of vegetables. The UK "5 a day" is based around 80 gm portion sizes - so the Australian recommendation is actually about 8.5 UK portions. The Australians also permit potatoes and sweet potatoes.
Weighing some fruit in the kitchen: medium apple 155 gm; medium banana (peeled) 115 gm; medium grapefruit (peeled) - normally regarded as 2 portions - 180 gm; - so I suspect those eating a lot of fruit have been getting more portions than they realise.
With the current obesity epidemic, I wonder if it might be better to ask people to eat less. It would be tragic if people are edging towards diabetes by cramming in more fruits and vegetables with the belief that they're being healthy.
What we need is nice slogan. Something like: 7 a day unless you're fat :)
The association between high fruit/vegetable intake - particularly vegetables - is of course just that, an association, and it may be that those who ate lots of fruit/vegetables had no room for calorie dense foods and this contributed to the benefit. It is difficult to eat too much fruit/vegetables in the calorific sense, unless of course you smother them in sugar/fat.
Those in the study with the highest intakes of fruit/vegetables were more likely to be female, non-smokers, better educated and on a higher income - though the statisticians did try to adjust for this. But they tried to adjust for these things when HRT was felt to be the best thing since sliced bread - or should that be parsnips?
So statistically speaking, a sex change and a change to a high-pressure job may be just as good for me. There was a good article by Tim Harford on the difference between causation and associations. Umbrellas are associated with rain but don't cause rain.
Until there is some decent evidence, I'll take this all with[out] a pinch of salt - there is better evidence on the effects of salt intake.
I honestly think there's something seriously wrong with society food wise, people can't get even 5 portions of fruits of veggies a day, never mind 7-10.
So much crap on the shelves that isn't proper food it's unbelievable.
Stick to nature and you can't go wrong.
You can of course go high fruit/vegetable and low salt with DASH: http://www.move.va.gov/download/Reso...EatingPlan.pdf
I eat 5 fruit a day fairly easily, mainyl at work because I'm bored. Its the veg side I struggle with. I normally have at best half a tomato and some salad in my sandwhich, and then evening meal normally has a bit of fresh veg in, but typically half a pepper or a couple of mushrooms in my portion.
I think mostly the people that 'eat fruit' will easily hit 5 a day, but its eating raw veg that is more beneficial. I also think that those people that are more likely to eat more fresh fruit and veg (rather than processed food) are also more likely to have a more rounded healthy lifestyle (e.g. drink less alcohol, not smoke, be more active).
I eat mainly vegetable based dishes so dont have trouble getting up to 7 a day. Remember pulses are included, so if you have a veg curry with lentils then include them as well, and, as i read today, onion if you use an onion in anything you cook they count.
Ummm...I don't struggle to eat vegetables but I just don't eat that much!
For example my average daily intake is this:
a bowl of muesli for breakfast
three rivitas with some hummus for lunch
a handful of nuts, an apple and a couple biscuits for snacks over the course of the day/evening
Maybe an omelette with broccoli, onion/leeks and spinach for tea or perhaps a baked potato with cheese and salad or some leftovers from the weekend out of the freezer (veggie chilli, bean stew that kind of thing).
My salads usually have at least three different kinds of leaves in with chopped raw red peppers, olives, tomatoes, cucumber and sometimes a bit of avocado so I'm hardly shunning veggies! I eat far more fruit and veg in the summer because I produce more. Looking at Mike T's explanation of what constitutes a portion of veg/fruit in the UK, maybe I am getting the 7 a day already it just sounded like a lot.
In the above article, vegetables score -16% reduced risk but vegetables in a meal only -8%. Is this assuming that vegetables in a meal are over-cooked, or that different inferior ones (eg root vegetables) are used, or that other ingredients somehow detract from their value? Does "in a meal" mean cooked together or just eaten together? Surely most vegetables are eaten "in a meal". Why is frozen fruit so bad that it increases one's risk by 17%? Elsewhere it is claimed that frozen fruit and vegetables can be better than fresh, because fresh are actually comparatively stale. Other studies have found that pulses are hugely beneficial, but here they only rate -5. Are prunes tinned in apple juice really inferior to prunes cooked at home - often with some kind of sweetening? Is a tomato a fruit, vegetable or salad?
I think this study, at any rate as reported here, just muddies the waters and discourages healthy eating.
7-10 a day. Seems a little low. Did they mean by lunch-time?