Get your 5 A DAY throughout the day
Here are some ideas for getting your 5 A DAY, throughout the day.
5 A DAY at breakfast
Add fruit to cereal, porridge or lower fat yoghurt – a handful of berries or a chopped banana is lovely. You can also add dried fruit, but not too much as it can be high in sugar.
Try having one glass (150ml) of 100% unsweetened fruit or vegetable juice or smoothie per day. This also counts as one portion, or a max of two portions if the smoothie contains all the edible fruit.or vegetable in the amount that you drink. Just check the label to find out more.
Lunch tips to get your 5 A DAY
Add some crunch to your sandwiches with cucumber, grated carrot or tomato, and have a piece of fruit.
And for your kids, a piece of fruit or veg can help cheer up a lunchbox. Try carrot sticks, baby tomatoes or a banana with a face drawn on the skin. And school dinners offer a portion of veg or salad and a portion of fruit as well - so that can be another way of getting them towards their 5 A DAY.
Dinnertime 5 A DAY ideas
For an easy way to your 5 A DAY, add canned, frozen or fresh veg to your meals to make them even tastier and go further too:
- Add chopped carrots to spaghetti Bolognese.
- Add red peppers to a pasta sauce.
- Mix peas into your mashed potato.
- Sprinkle pepper, onion, mushroom, sweetcorn or pineapple chunks on top of a thin-based pizza.
- Have a salad or veg with your main meal.
- If it’s a roast dinner, make sure you’ve got some veg on your plate. Try carrots, broccoli, beans, peas, cauliflower, courgettes…delicious!
- Add lentils, beans and peas to stews, bakes and salads.
Healthier 5 A DAY snack tips
It’s fun to dunk. Sticks of cucumber, pepper, carrot and cauliflower florets all go great with lower fat dip, lower fat cheese spread or salsa – delicious!
Try keeping some chunks of fresh fruit in the fridge, ready to snack on. And dried fruit counts too. Try just a few raisins or dried apricots - not too many though, as they contain a lot of sugar.
What are your favourite 5 A DAY tips? Why not share your healthy eating ideas on the Change4Life Facebook page?
5 A DAY ideas
Not sure what to do with some of the stuff in your fridge? Use our tool for some new ideas.
I’ve tried to get my 6 year old son to eat vegetables. But whatever I give him, he says he hates it and refuses. Help!
It can be difficult to get kids to eat things they’ve made up their minds they don’t like - it can take a while to persuade them. So try to do things little by little - he doesn’t have to eat 5 A DAY straight away.
First, try getting him to put some sweetcorn or peas in his mouth by offering him something small, like a sticker as a reward. Next time get him to eat just a mouthful, then two, and so on. You could also try ‘disguising’ veg, mix some mashed carrot into mashed potato, or add some finely chopped peppers to a pizza.
Another idea is to invite a friend to tea – ideally one who likes veg. If your son sees someone else tucking in to veg he may be tempted to so the same. Kids love to copy their friends!