Five a day fruit and vegetables. How much is equal to one portion or daily serving?

What is five a day?

Five a day: Is the amount of fruit and vegetables we are recommended to eat daily for a healthy diet.

But how much fruit and vegetables is five portions a day?

Fruit and vegetable portion sizes are explained here in an easy to understand way.

Why Five a day ?

The suggested five a day ( in the U.K.) is meant to be a minimum quantity of fruit and vegetables eaten in the daily diet. In other countries the amount of fruit and vegetables recommended to be eaten in one day is higher.

It is a good idea to try to eat a good selection of different fruit and vegetables as then you will be getting a wider range of vitamins, minerals, nutrients and fibre.

Why were 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day recommended ?

This advice was put forward as it was realised that people were not eating enough fruit and vegetables in their daily diet.

The recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day – was introduced to try to encourage people to eat a healthier diet to cut their health risks in the future.

How can you work out what a portion of fruit or vegetables is and looks like?

Eating your recommended Five Portions of Fruit and Vegetables a day is easier if you

know what a portion of a particular fruit or vegetable is in an easy to understand way.

Here is a simple guide to Quantities considered one portion of fruit or one portion of vegetables.

Fresh, frozen, chilled, canned, 100% unsweetened juice, and dried fruit and vegetables all count.

Here is the List for what equals One Portion of Fruit.

1 portion of fruit is equal to these quantities:

One portion of :

Cherries = 14 cherries

Apples = one medium apple.

Strawberries = 7 strawberries.

Tiny fruits such as raspberries, strawberries, grapes = 1 cup full

Small fruits such as plums and apricots = 2 small fruits

Medium fruits - apple, orange, banana or pear = one of these fruits

Large fruit = 1 slice of melon or pineapple.

Salad:

Salad one desert bowl is equal to one portion of salad.

Vegetables

2-3 tablespoons are equal to one portion of vegetables.

reference source used : Gardeners’ World magazine for this information.

An example five-a-day could be:

1. The glass of fresh orange juice or a smoothie that you have for your for breakfast could count as the first portion.
2. Then the small pack of dried apricots you ate for your mid-morning snack could be the next portion
3. The side salad you ate in a restaurant or in your lunch box at lunch time lunch could be the next portion.
4. If you then ate peas and broccoli with main meal they could equal one portion.
5. Then the fresh tasty strawberries you had as dessert would also be a portion.

Eating healthy food is more a habit and way of thinking about food than we might think. If you find the taste of fruit or vegetables not to your liking there are ways you can slowly introduce them to your meal times. If you make subtle changes to the food that you serve over time you can make the meals healthy and tastier and reduce the amount of sugars and fats in the meals too.

If someone really hates the taste of fruit or vegetables it is pointless to try to bully them into trying them. Instead help them with the challenge of trying new foods and showing patience if they struggle with the concept. However sometimes people do need a 'wake up call' about how unhealthy they might become if they continue to neglect their health when it comes to selecting what to eat for meals and snacks.

The best way to introduce new foods to older children and adults who are averse to fruits and vegetables is to let them find a way that helps them to find a way of reducing or altering the 'aspect' of the food that they find distasteful, this might mean they think they hate the texture or small of fruit most, OK then, find a way to disguise it for them.

This might mean introducing a jelly flavored with a fruit taste or puree a fruit or mashing it down or cutting it up into very small cubes, whatever works for them at least they are making a start on the journey to eating fruit. If someone loves chocolate they might try dipping fruit pieces into chocolate that you have melted for them until they get use to the fruit flavor and texture and can try eating it without the chocolate.

Try keeping a bowl full of fruits on your kitchen counter or a prepared box of salad or fruit salad in your fridge for snacks.

Salad vegetables
A portion guide of salad vegetables is:

3 sticks of celery, 5cm piece of cucumber, one medium tomato or 7 cherry tomatoes.

A serving of vegetables, such as frozen or mushy peas, boiled carrots or stir-fried broccoli would be roughly 80g.

Dried fruit a portion is around 30g. which is about

one heaped tablespoon of raisins, currants or sultanas,

one tablespoon of mixed fruit, two figs, three prunes

or a handful of dried banana chips.

Juices and smoothies

One 150ml glass of unsweetened 100% fruit or vegetable juice can count as a portion. But only one glass counts, further glasses of juice don’t count toward your total.

A glass of fruit or vegetable juice is one portion

As is a small tin roughly 200g of fruit

Potatoes- sorry potatoes do not count towards your five portions a day. Potatoes are classed as starchy foods.

If your child is reluctant to try fruit and the problem seems to be mainly to do with the texture of the food, you could try to tempt them with fruit smoothies. Or if they like lollipops, then freeze the fruit smoothie mix down into lollipops to make them into a more tempting version. Once the child becomes use to the flavours of the fruits they may be willing to taste the 'real thing'.

You could freeze fruit juice down to make a more juicy type ice lolly or even make it into 'ice cube' size portion.

Banana or carrot cake may be useful for introducing new tastes to a child who likes cakes, these could be made into individual cupcake size cakes for the child.

If the child likes jam sandwiches or jam on toast try making fruit compote for them as it is healthier, there is a link here for a recipe. You can add fruit compote to a bowl of breakfast cereals.

If a child likes pasta making your own pasta sauce with tomatoes. You can use fresh or tinned  tomatoes and this will give a healthy version of pasta sauce as you can control the amount of salt.

Here are links to pages with easy to follow recipes that help you to eat your 5 a day portions of fruit and vegetables...

just click on link to follow thro to recipe ...