It's ridiculous!
 

I've got about 20 diet and nutrition books, with helpful guidelines, charts of various combinations of foods/eating schemes, recipes, food lists, supplement lists . . .

But to do any of them, you have to be buying and cooking food constantly, not to mention eating it! "Variety is key" -- "eat 5 servings of fruit and vegetables daily" -- "3 servings of whole grains" --

Nobody eats like that. You sure can't tell me that primitive man had that much variety in their diet or ate all those food groups, let alone the minimum daily requirements of vitamins and minerals. How can this represent a human being's optimum health?

I agree with you that it's difficult to fit all those servings in without doing a lot of grocery buying (and eating). I'd like to gently point out, however, that primitive man didn't have a long life expectancy. Those guidelines are for people who want to live a long time. :)

BTW, are you feeling better these days?

eat the books

That would certainly fulfill her roughage quotient.

It'll make her shit like a Bison

That's a good point, Alluvial. But some of that has to be from accidents and disease rather than nutrition. Surely it would make sense that man has evolved to thrive on a more limited selection of food choices, based on local environments, not a supermarket with ingredients from all over the world.

And Jim . . . maybe I'll eat you! At least I'd get some protein out of it . . . ;)

Watch your sodium intake.

I agree with you Cloud, especially about the primitive people being limited to certain things depending upon geography. I think that as long as a person limits their intake of Bad Things and gets as much of the veggies & fiber as they can, it's ok. That's what I do anyway, and I'm not dead yet. ;)

eat food. not too much. mostly plants.

better, and more succinct, words of wisdom than in all those books.

If you have a mixed grain cereal for breakfast, a salad sandwich on whole grain bread for lunch and a basic dinner of 3 - 5 veges and some kind of lean meat, then snack on fruit and nuts during the day, it's pretty easy to have a nutritious diet, and I don't think it requires much effort really.

Variety is better, but 5 portions is 5 portions, even if they're all the same...

my kids are currently into at least 3 portions of peas a day.

Actually, our cave-dwelling ancestors ate a much wider array of foods than we do. Consider that they had no agriculture, so no large harvests of any one food. Grains were especially hard to come by. They scatter-shot most meals, a little of this, a little of that.

I easily eat "5 a day", probably much more. I was raised in a vegetarian household, and I'm trying to eat less carbs -- that pretty much leaves me with veggies. Good thing I like them!

We signed up for a half-share in a CSA farm this year. I can't wait to get my first shipment. It's scheduled to start on June 4th. It'll be a bit like Iron Chef, looking at the "secret ingredients" every week! I'm going to enjoy the challenge, I think. I can also get grass-pastured beef, eggs, butter and honey from them.

Maybe I should start a picture thread for it?

Also, add the fact that their diet would have been completely seasonal. So they'd have had variety through the year as well.

I am trying a similar thing Cloud. I've been aiming at 5 portions of fruit and veg (5 different portions) and it's not so easy. I am managing to average about 4 different portions a day at the moment. Some days only 2-3 others maybe 5-6. What I have noticed is that since I started this new regime, I seem to spend an inordinate amount of my time thinking about, planning, and buying food, let alone the actual cooking!

My usual strategy is to make sure I always have tinned fruit in the house (I can rarely persuade myself to eat fresh fruit but tinned fruit goes down easy and counts to 5 a day), so that usually takes care of at least 1 portion a day. A glass of frut jiuce is a 2nd.

Then I try to plan a meal with at least 2-3 portions included in it. So, for instance the other day I roasted half a courgette (in sticks) quarter of a pepper and a couple of florets of broccoli, which I stirred through cooked pasta along with a spoon of creme fraiche, some whloegrain mustard and a couple of dessertspoons of sweetcorn. Was very nice and took care of 3 portions of veg (pepper and sweetcorn were each half a portion)

I also try to have bags of mixed fruit, seeds and nuts in the house as well. Whlst they haven't completely replaced the processed high-cal and heavily sugared sweets, they've certainly reduced them.

On days I can't be arsed cooking, I try to at the very least make sure that if I am having a ready meal or somesuch, I add some veg to it. Last time I had tinned soup, I threw in half a tin of peas to bulk it up.

Bit by bit, I am migrating to more fresh and less tinned/processed food. Though sweetcorn, peas and various kind sof beans are good to have in. Kidney beans are great because a couple of spoons of those go with so many things.

But it is hard,. When you actually see how much each portion is supposed to be. Three tablespoons of kidney beans? That's a lot of beans! half a pepper? What all in one go? These are quantities I don't usually cope well with...but I realised if I reduce the amount of bread/pasta and meat (I only eat meat maybe twice a week now), I am able to eat more of the veg and pulses.

I am becomng slightly obsessed tho :P

Also, Cloud, remember that primitive man had no job. His job was finding enough food to eat. And eating it.

And he would have been hungry a reasonable amount of the time - binge and purge doncha know.

The books/ diet plans can only work on what it healthy for us now, given that we do not exert ourselves for 12 hours a day looking for food. He would have been able to burn off so much more fat, but have had access to so much less for example. No pastries for him!

Not knocking you for your question - I find it very hard to stick to Govt healthy eating guidelines. And it bugs me that I am both the fattest person and yet have the healthiest basket every time I go to the supermarket. Yes I know I am losing weight, but when I look at the shite other people are buying it seem so unfair!

If you ever decide to repair to the woods for a stab at living like out ancestors, invite me along. I know I'd come out of it far healthier. And slimmer.

I'm not sure I actually buy that our ancestors ate more variety--I'll have to research, but my main point is that modern man (woman) is faced with too many food choices! Too much conflicting information! and just plain too much food. On my account, anyway.

If I followed all (some) of the guidelines, I have to think about food constantly. Seems counter-productive when I'm trying to de-emphasize it.

Corn is not a vegetable, it's a grain.

Bingo - this is key. Fill your plate with veggies and accessorize with meat and grain.

Yes it is, but sweetcorn counts as a veg in the five-a-day tables.

It's still a grain, not a vegetable.

Sweetcorn here is def classified as one of our 5 a day (making it either a fruit or a vegetable)
ETA - soz, Dani already said that.

I admit this does not make it such. Carrot is classified as a fruit due to EU law which specifies only fruit can make marmalade... and Portugal makes carrot marmalade.

Kidney beans are also counted towards five a day even though they are in the beans and pulses category. I think it's because they can provide some of the same vitamins as brightly colooured veg.

What is a pulse? I take it this is not the beating of your heart through your veins...

Peas, beans and lentils are pulses.

Not A Vegetable:

• Corn of any type
• Green Peas
• Kidney beans
• Chick Peas
• Lentils of any type
• Soy beans
• Potatoes of any type
• Winter squash (pumpkin, butternut, etc.)
• V8 (too much sodium)

Ohhhhhh. Thanks for the clarification!

Hey. I just follow the chart of stuff to include in my 5 a day.

I knew the EU was stupid. Would they like to annex Indiana?

I've had great onion marmalade -- does that make an onion a fruit? :eyebrow:

If you're going to exclude fruits you're list is going to be really long...

:p

Mostly they'd end up as 'preserves' rather than 'marmelades'...except for locally made stuff which tends not to take much account of distant directives ;P

I miss Croques in Leicester so much that it almost hurts.
My favourite wrap from there had onion marmalade in it.
Yes, I think it must be a fruit. Never again will I say I'm not a fruit person.

Nom, nom, onion-breath, nom.

BTW, the EU aren't stupid. They're a bunch of intelligent people who have to work as a committee. What is a camel? a horse designed by a committee. See?

Oh and peas SO are a vegetable.
I don't care what horticulturalists think - Mum put them on my plate and told me to eat my veg. Subject closed. Next you'll be telling me potatoes are tubers or some such rubbitsh.

What about mushrooms? [/shitstirrer]

They're on the 5 a day list too!

*smiles* it's clearly worked out in a very non-vegetably-fruity way, in order to achieve the best spread of vitamins, nutrients and anti-oxidants. The beans that are included tend to be the highly coloured shiny ones. Sweetcorn is the only 'grain' included, which given its colour and texture I can see how that might offer similar advantages to a brightly coloured fleshy veg.

The purpose, after all, of eating five veg and fruit a day, is not that you eat 5 fruit and veg, but rather that you get the various goodies contained within those fruit and veg. No point getting too hung up on definitions, if something that isn't strictly speaking either a fruit or veg nonetheless offers the same goodies as peas and apples. Nobody would deny that potatoes and other tubers and roots are a type of vegetable, but some are and some aren't included on the list. Parsnips and carrots are, potatoes aren't. They're not attempting to redefine what is or isn't a veg or fruit. They're just trying to collect together a category of intake and the imperfect designation of 5 fruit and veg a day is an easy and convenient way of doing so.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: sugar is a vegetable. eat up, kiddies.

except for brown sugar...that's clearly a grain...

You have checked to make sure that neither the tinned fruit nor the juice has added high-fructose corn syrup, right?

*Shakes head* we don't get so much of the corn syrup over here. I usually get Del Monte tins, some of which come in 'light syrup.' The stuff they make for the British market is made from sugar and water; looking online I see that the same product on the American market is made with corn syrup.

Wanna lose some weight without having to starve yourself?

Become a vegetarian. Ever see a fat vegetarian? They are like tapeworm skinny!

Eat fruit until you can't crap real crap anymore. Water... lots of water (zero calories).

I've seen plenty of fat vegos. Well, the ones that eat dairy anyway, but also, nothing stops them from eating lots of fried foods such as vegetarian spring rolls or hot chips (fries) etc. You can get fat no matter what your personal choice on animal products is. ;)

eta: oh and eating a high carb diet (breads, rice, pasta, high sugars) with little excercise s likely to make you fat too.

I've never had an issue getting my veggies in... I was a vegetarian until Flint Jr. came along.... portion control in general has always been my weakness... carbs to be specific... I could live on them... I have an undergrad in Holistic Nurtrition, yet I have managed to pack on the pounds and not lose them all yet... and I'm talking about 60 pounds I have to lose... not that Flint is counting... he likes some meat, but I do not... not on me anyway.

V-8 is an easy way to up your veggie intake, but I HIGHLY recomend getting the low sodium variety. Too much salt will lead to water retention and it is much easier to exceed your salt limit than you could imagine. A nice broth based soup before a meal to help fill you up. I also am a fan of a good colon Flush. If your colon is clean you absorb your nutrients better and thus require less food to meet your body's nutritional needs. An average woman can lose about 25 lbs from an effective flush. And is is all literally crap gumming up the intestines. I can't do it yet, as I am still breastfeeding...

If you have the Lifetime Channel... the new Cook Yourself Thin is really well done and the recipes are pretty terriffic... and I've tried most of them... lost 7 lbs so far...

Cloud, servings arent as big as you think, for example, an apple is actually two servings.

Over here it's 1 small, or half a large apple. Though, I honestly find that rather a lot of apple to eat...

It's whne you get to veg that the portions get difficult. 3 tablespoons of peas? or beans? That's a huge amount. To try and get more than one portion of veg into a meal is hard. I don't eat large quantities on the whole (unless it's 'empty' cals, like sweets and biscuits!) . If I get a full portion of peas, a full portion of broccolli and a full portion of courgette (zuccini) into a meal, there's precious little room for anything else. I invariably end up leaving most of the (tiny amount of) pasta or rice and picking out the remaining veg before I get half way through.

I guess the way to do it is to eat more than one meal...but I rarely manage that. I graze a little (bit of fruit, a couple of biscuits, a drink of chocolate milk) and then one meal at night...sometimes not even that. Often enough my night time 'meal' is a slice of ham straight from the pack and a couple of spoons of sweetcorn and cottage cheese, from their respective tin/tub. I'm getting better at it though. I;d say the last three weeks, I've eaten at least one proper meal most days and on some of them two!

Well, this "portion" or "serving" stuff is just crazy. If a serving is half an apple, what do you do with the other half? In the morning I generally have a large glass of low sodium V8 with 2 olives stuffed with garlic cut up in the juice. But a "serving" of olives is 1.5 olives. Does anybody ever eat just 1.5 olives? What do you do with the other .5? I suppose you could save it for tomorrow - it would keep.

As far as I am concerned, a serving is however much you eat until you don't want any more.

My grandmother was told by her doctor to eat half a banana every day. She was very frugal, and did not know what to do with the other half. Finally, she decided just to walk to the back of her large lot and leave the other half for the birds. I really do not think that she would have been hurt by eating the whole banana, or by just eating one every other day. She lived to be 99 years old, after all. Well, maybe it was the half banana, who knows?

I think the point isn't that you only eat single portions of stuff...rather that it gives you a minimum that lets you know iof you've covered that one :P

3 tablespoons of peas is a huge amount? (scratches head). I don't think 3 T of much of anything is a lot.

Plutonium, maybe. Certainly not peas.

I agree though--portion size is crucial, tricky--and ridiculous!

Once you add the three tablespoons of peas, and the half a courgette, and the three tablespoons of beans, or corn...that's it. No room for pasta or rice lol.

what's a courgette again in Brit?

It was the walk!

Fat veggies: I was skinny till I became a vegetarian. Totally f*cked up my metabolism. Do *NOT* recommend.

The things I have on my "not veg" list are either high in carbs or high in fat. I'm not getting into the whole tomato's-a-fruit / no-it-isn't debate.

Can't have a good vindaloo without tomato anyway. :)

A zucchini

MMMmmmm...zucchini...mmmmMMM

I was at my heaviest the years my diet was vegan+fish... I was also nursing at the time, which supposedly keeps 15lbs on, but I blame the carbs anyway. Every veggie (not vegan) Ive know has been a cheese and bread addict, and most have been overweight.

My most successful diets ahve been high in carbs. My body burns them really efficiently it seems. I find most people who have had a fluctuation in their weight know what works for them and what doesn't.

I refuse to cut out the fats I enjoy (dairy) but can happily steer clear of pastry, cakes, biscuits. It's harder this time round because my Mum has a sweet tooth and there are always LOTS of tempting, small, snacky sweet things in view. I would never buy them myself, but the temptation to have just one biscuit seems to apply every time I open the fridge. Not helped by the sugar cravings that come after a long time on the sauce.

Still, I'm making this tomorrow (with the variation that I'm having a pork chop rather than chicken, because I have one to use up). It may not contain full portions in 5 a day terms, but I will be eating RED onion, GREEN peas and YELLOW sweetcorn. A result, methinks.

Yey! There you are! Was just about to send out an APB:)