Eating Healthy Food - Five Fruit and Veg a day

At Help for Busy Mums we like to do just that. Help.

So just to show you some of the "stuff" you can find on our website I thought I would let you take a look at our tips on Healthy Eating and making sure you eat your five fruit and veg a day. There's a lot of confusion about this... so I found this reference very useful. Hope you do too.

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Eating Healthy Food

How to make sure you eat five fruit and veg a day

Are you getting enough vitamins and minerals?

What is a portion?

One portion is about 80 grams, which could be half a grapefruit, a slice of melon, a handful of grapes, an apple, two satsumas, three dried apricots or a tablespoon of raisins. One portion of veg could be three heaped tablespoons of peas, carrots or sweetcorn or a bowl of salad. A medium-sized glass of 100% fruit juice also counts.

What counts?

• Fresh, frozen, tinned and dried fruit and vegetables.
• Pure fruit and vegetable juices.
• Veg in ready meals, takeaways, pasta sauces and soups.
• Fruit in puddings.
• But watch out for added salt/ fat/ sugar in takeaways and ready meals - check out the labels.

What doesn't?

• Potatoes, because they are considered a 'starchy' food like bread and pasta, but these are all important parts of a healthy diet.
• More than one glass of juice - even if you drink lots of it during the day, juice has hardly any fibre and has loads of sugar which is bad for your teeth.
• More than one portion of beans or pulses a day, because they don't give the same mixture of vitamins and minerals as fruit and veg.
• Jam. Vitamin pills and supplements, as they don't contain fibre.
• Munching your favourite fruit or vegetable five times a day. You need to eat a variety to get the maximum benefits from all the different nutrients.

Are there any shortcuts?

• Slice banana into your cereal.
• Snack on an apple, banana, handful of grapes or raisins rather than a packet of crisps.
• Have a glass of orange juice.
• Dip veg sticks (e.g. carrots, celery) into salsa sauce.
• Stuff salad bits such as cucumber, lettuce and tomato into your sarnies.
• Add extra vegetables to pizza, pasta sauces and soups.
• Stir fries, stews and casseroles are any easy way of combining up to nine vegetables in one go.
• Replace stodgy puddings with a hunk of melon or a fruit salad.
• Make a smoothie - blend low fat natural yoghurt with two handfuls of blackberries, blueberries or raspberries.
• Make fruit kebabs by threading bite-sized chunks of apples, pears, strawberries and pineapple onto wooden skewers - you could even grill or barbeque them.

Labels: benefits of healthy eating, five fruti and veg a day, healthy eating

posted by Diana and Steve @ 21:27