During Healthy Eating Week #HEW2022, one of the key messages was Get At Least 5 A Day 🍎🍇🥕🥦🌽
But why 5 A Day?
The 5 A Day campaign is based on advice from the World Health Organization (WHO), which recommends eating a minimum of 400g of fruit and vegetables a day to lower the risk of serious health problems, such as heart disease, stroke and some types of cancer.
Why are vegetables so important?
✅ Vegetables are full of essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that provide many important health benefits to your body. For instance, carrots are known for being very high in vitamin A, which plays an important role in eye health, as you grow older.
✅ Vegetables are an excellent source of dietary fibre, which can help to maintain a healthy gut and prevent constipation and other digestion problems. A diet high in fibre can also reduce your risk of bowel cancer.
🔄 Variety is important! Different types and colours of fruits and vegetables contain different combinations of important nutrients, like fibre and vitamins, which our bodies need to stay healthy. So, to get the most nutritional benefit out of your 5 A DAY, try to have a wide variety of vegetables from each of the colour groups – green, yellow, red, purple, orange and white!
What is a portion of vegetables?
A portion of vegetables is 80g or
🥕 Three heaped tablespoons of cooked vegetables such as carrots, peas or sweetcorn
🥬 Four heaped tablespoons of cooked kale, spinach or spring greens
🥫 Three heaped tablespoons of pulses or beans such as haricot beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans, butter beans or chickpeas
Here is your challenge for the next week – try at least one new vegetable 🍽️
How many of these different vegetables have you tried – let us know in the comments below😀
