The Netherlands along with the UK recommend that we should eat at least 5 portions of vegetables and fruit per day. Interestingly, France recommends 10 portions!
Why should we eat so many veggies and fruits? Both fruit and vegetables contain plenty fibre and nutrients. Fibre is essential for our gut health, ensuring regular bowel movements and keep you feeling fuller longer. Fruit and vegetables also provide lots of nutrients to support our immune system. A study by the Imperial College London (2017) found that eating 10 portions of fruit and vegetables could prevent up to 7.8 million deaths every year worldwide and could reduce your risk of reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke.
It’s good to eat colourful fruits and vegetables every day; think green, orange, purple, red and yellow – blueberries, broccoli, celery, citrus fruits, spinach, pumpkin, green beans, peppers etc. Although fruits are good for health, they do contain more sugar so eat more vegetables than fruit.
Here are my top 3 tips to up your fruit & vegetables intake:
Make a smoothie to make it easy way to up your intake. Choose your fruit (e.g. blueberries + banana) + half a cucumber + big handful of spinach + avocado + few mint leaves + water.
Swap your sugary afternoon snack to chopped vegetables (celery, cucumber, peppers), pop into a ziplock bag & take to work. Add some hummus to make a delicious snack!
For dinner, chop plenty vegetables such as aubergine, carrots, courgette, celery, peppers and peas & add chopped tomatoes to make a sauce. Serve with wholegrain pasta, rice or quinoa.
