Why have your 7 a day?

We all know that veg is good for us, and up until recently 5 a day was our goal. It is common knowledge: 5 portions of fruit and veg per day to stay healthy.

But what does ‘healthy’ really mean? Why is it so important to have all this veg when supplements are available? And why, when 1 glass of orange juice is 1 portion, is 2 glasses not 2 portions?

To add to this confusion we are now being recommended to eat between 7-10 portions of fruit and veg a day. WHAAAAT?

Don’t worry. Stay calm. We’re gonna break this down.

Firstly, what is healthy? The World Health Organisation (WHO) explain this in the most concise way:

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmiry.”

One aspect of health is nutrition, does the food we eat benefit us and our long term health or are we killing ourselves with too many sugars and chemicals? It is common sense to see that fruits and vegetables are a natural source of essential vitamins and minerals but also a great source of fibre. Fibre is often forgotten about but it’s the little carb that could, keeping us filled up for longer and keeping things…erm…regular.

The “5-a-day” campaign was successful in that it raised our awareness of the importance of fruit and vegetables, but did we eat our 5 a day? And can we now manage 7-10 a day?

The truth is that squeezing fruit and veg (no pun intended) into our diets is actually very simple when you plan ahead.

One serving of vegetables is one cup, but if you don’t carry measuring cups around with you, you can judge this by cupping your hands together. Simple. It is easy to add at least 2 servings of vegetables with dinner, more if you can add the veg to bulk out the meal e.g shepherds pie. If you can aim to eat some veg at each meal you are onto a winner.

One serving of fruit is a medium sized piece of fruit, this one varies obviously. Some apples are bigger than others, some bananas are huge, some clementines are teeny and what about berries? If your fruit is not easily placed into the ‘medium’ category, you can measure this against 1 cupped hand. Fruit is excellent as a replacement snack, and can be bought in tubs in almost every shop you walk past, so there’s no excuse.

Serving sizes are based on the variety of vitamins and minerals you are getting, not on physical portion sizes, so 10 apples is still just 1 portion.

What about juices I hear you cry? Well, technically your 7-10 a day can come from fresh, frozen, tinned and juiced sources. However, there is some controversy over fruit juices now.

Fruit juice is not the best source of your intake per day. While the orange that your juice came from was a wee ball of nutritional joy containing vitamin C, fibre, folate and vitamin B1, to name a few, it is now a brightly coloured liquid sugar. Fructose to be precise. The end result still contains a few of the vitamins and minerals present in the orange but it now contains no fibre. The danger of this can be explained in a simple formula:

Fruit sugar – fibre = fast digestive sugars causing high sugar levels

So your orange juice, your 1 of your 7-10 a day, is now having the same effect on your body as a bottle of full sugar coke. Bet you wish you’d just eaten the orange now?

We have established health, why fruit and veg is good, and what portion sizes are. But what about supplements?

Why eat 7-10 portions a day of food when there are supplements?

The key is in the name really, they are there to ‘supplement’ your diet, not replace. Even supplement companies say on the bottles that they should not be used in place of a healthy balanced diet.

They may be convenient but when was the last time that a multivitamin kept you satisfied until lunch time? The truth is if you vary your diet you can get your essential vitamins naturally, and you won’t still feel hungry and unsatisfied later.

In conclusion, fruit and veg should be the kings and queens of food. They pack a nutritional punch, they are full of healthy fibre, and thanks to big supermarkets we can have pretty much any fruit or veg at any time of the year. And why have a tablet of vitamin C when you can eat an orange?

*In a small number of individuals supplementation may be recommended by a GP. This includes pregnant women, people on some life long medications, some health conditions e.g anaemia and those recovering from surgery. Supplements will be recommended by a GP when they are essential. If you suspect a deficiency, get to your GP.

References:

http://www.who.int/about/definition/en/print.html

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/04april/pages/five-a-day-should-be-upped-to-seven-a-day.aspx

http://authoritynutrition.com/fruit-juice-is-just-as-bad-as-soda/