Healthy Eating: Five a Day Food

'Have you had your 5 today?'

Recent publicity accuses the average Brit of committing slow suicide. We drink too much, we smoke too much, we take too little exercise and our diet is a joke. Change is needed but does change have to be radical? Consider diet, one of the easiest ways to introduce a more healthy diet into your life is by ensuring you take between 5 to 7 portions of fruit and vegetables every single day.

This amount recommended by leading authorities, ensures you receive all the vitamins, minerals and trace elements you need for a healthy life. It sounds much more difficult that it is, and you very quickly become accustomed to checking out your daily intake. Below is a shorthand guide but do not eat more than three portions of fruit per day - too much sugar!

1. Use unsweetened apple or cranberry juice on your breakfast cereal instead of milk
2. Drink unsweetened fruit juice instead of soft drinks, tea or coffee
3. Add a piece of fresh fruit such as an apple, apricots (dried is OK), banana or berries with cereal
4. Replace jam with a mashed banana on your toast
5. Mix fresh fruit and nuts with natural yoghurt
6. Have tomato and/or mushrooms on toast instead of bacon or eggs
7. For lunch have homemade soup made with added handfuls of vegetables - be inventive add peas, sweetcorn, mushrooms, courgettes or carrots. Frozen vegetables are fine, you can keep packets in your freezer and add handfuls at will.
8. Have beans on toast with an added tomato on top
9. Take a piece of fruit for a snack or for dessert
10. Eat a handful or raisins or sultanas instead of sweets or crisps
11. Throw in a handful of vegetables with every meal you prepare, e.g. if you are heating a pizza add mushrooms, peppers, courgettes, sweetcorn, or sprinkle with spinach - a much maligned veggie. If you are cooking mince add carrots, frozen peas and turnip while it cooks.
12. While you are preparing food, eat some of the vegetables raw. Carrots are easy but try a little raw courgettes, broccoli or cauliflower too. Raw vegetables are particularly good for you - many nutrients can be lost in cooking especially when boiled.
13. Scrub vegetables rather than peel them. Most of the goodness lies within the top layer of the skin. And don't soak them in water - you'll leave many of the nutrients in the bowl. Instead peel, scrape or scrub first then run under water to clean.
14. Steam vegetables instead of boiling, you do not need a complicated new pan set, you can buy a simple metal insert which fits in your existing pans and is much easier to clean. Found in all good Woolies for a couple of £s. Or suspend a metal strainer over a pan of water and put the lid on top of the strainer.
15. Keep the water after steaming and use as a stock for soup or stews. Use it the same or the next day. It does make a strong-tasting stock so with broccoli for example use it for broccoli soup. Steam the florets for use in one meal then make a soup using the stalks -thinly sliced, (waste nothing) the left over water as stock, add an onion, some garlic and a potato for a tasty, nourishing meal- you can even use the same pan if you do it immediately.
16. Mix some spinach, cabbage, sweetcorn, peas, cabbage or leaks in with mashed potatoes, or any other food. Spinach is especially good in macaroni and cheese.
17. Try sprouting your own beans - it's fun as well as nourishing
18. Have a baked potato - use baked beans as a topping that needs no butter. Add a small salad made up of a mixture of vegetables.
19. Add leafy vegetables and tomato to any sandwich
20. Add a handful of lentils, kidney beans or butter beans to soups and stews. Tinned is fine but try to buy only those with no added sugar. Sugar is the one thing you NEVER have to add to food: your body can get all it requires naturally from other sources.

All you really have to do is change one habit into another. Use your imagination - the choice of vegetables available today means no meal need ever be boring.