We’re constantly being advised to eat more fruit and vegetables with a reasonable goal of 5 a day from the powers that be, highlighted recently via the Change4Life campaign. If you’re the sort of person who munches on fruit and vegetables morning, noon and night then this may not be too tricky. However what if you don’t like fruit or veg? Maybe you have children that aren’t too keen or you struggle to get all of your portions in each day. What even counts as a portion?
Worry no more as we offer ideas and ways to help you hit your healthy target.
Fruit is an essential part of our diet offering a large number of vitamins and minerals to keep us healthy and fuel us with energy. Fruits do have a large amount of natural sugars which when consumed in volume can convert to fat in the body and cause havoc with blood sugar levels. Do ensure fruit is included each day, but just be mindful of how much you are eating.
Vegetables on the other hand don’t have sugar (although root vegetables such as carrots) and can therefore be eating in abundance. You will find an incredible amount of nutrition through veggies, particularly green vegetables. When you sit down to a main meal, ideally half of your plate should be made up with veggies, but what about the rest of the day?
Juicing
Juices are a great way to get vegetables into your daily diet quickly and easily. Whilst you may take a little while to get used to enjoying the flavour of a vegetable juice, you will reap the benefits and feel really good, very quickly. You’ll get a quick boost of energy without the post sugar slump and you’re body can digest juice in a matter of seconds versus several hours for whole foods. Be mindful of how much fruit you drink, although an apple or a citrus such as lime or lemon can help to cut through the rich vegetable taste, especially if using strong flavours such as spinach or cabbage.
Hide the veggies
This is good for those who aren’t keen or for fussy children. Use a food processor to finely chop carrots, celery, onion, peppers, courgette, aubergine or any other vegetables that you enjoy to make the base of a tomato sauce. This is great for pasta dishes as when combined with a tin of chopped tomatoes and some herbs and minced lean beef or meatballs, they are not noticeable. The same can be done for soup, blend the vegetables with the stock to make a smooth liquid, if you’re making a meat or fish based chowder, the vegetables can be easily disguised.
Know your portions
One of the most important elements of getting your 5 a day in is to know what counts as a portion. You’ll find many guidelines available online but you should work on 80g of fruit or vegetables which can equate roughly to a medium sized apple, 2 satsuma or 2 broccolli spears or 30g of dried fruit which is about a tablespoon’s worth.
Not always fresh
Bare in mind that fruit and veg don’t have to come in the obvious fresh form. You can use tinned fruits and vegetables, frozen fruit and veg, fruit juice from cartons (not from concentrate) and even beans and pulses.
Just note that potatoes are not included as they need to be part of your carbohydrate allowance (a quarter plate per main meal).
Lloyd is currently contributing a variety of health and diet related guest articles to http://www.rangecookers.co.uk/.