So you know how we are all supposed to eat five fruit and veg a day? I know because we had a brightly coloured food chart on my fridge and I’d have to clock in my intake using grocery-shaped magnets at the end of the school day. Well anyway, apparently they were wrong, because really it should be seven or ten!
A study by UCL reported that people packing in seven helpings of fruit and vegetables a day were 42% less likely to die prematurely of any cause.
Whilst seven is super, ten is better. Whopping portion-size munchers were 25% less at risk of a death from cancer and 31% less likely to die from heart disease. (JAM reaches for the fruit bowl)
This ‘holy’ veg thing does seem to crop up a lot. Typically the topic finds me gloating about how I made the most amazing stir-fry for dinner last night, wait…didn’t you see my Instagram? And yes I pride myself on that stir-fry.
I’ve come along way since stuffing Fruit Winders and School Bars (which have now come under fire) into my lunchbox then swaggering toward the chart on the fridge. Eat ten though, seriously? “Hi, I’ll have a side order of vegetables with my salad please and can I get an entire fruit bowl to go?” Oh and um… good luck to mums everywhere with this one.
Some disillusioned folk have shrugged this off as nonsense of course. In fact a few have piped up about how even the five-a-day story was purely mythical, some brilliant concoction born to a US marketing campaign. Well I’m no nutritionist but fish aside; you’ll be pushed to find many of our oh-so-worshipped super-foods being anything but veg.
US scientists say a diet typical of 50 to 75 years ago with less junk food and more home cooking is the most effective way to stay healthy. Go back to the diet of our grandparents? I’ll be having chips, pork pies and everything fried then.
They really mean a diet ripe with natural resources. Asians are renowned for chowing down on delectable, vegetable goodness and its no secret that they have lower rates of heart disease and cancer. Okinawa, Japan is home to the longest-living people on Earth and their diet consists largely of sweet potato, sea vegetables and leafy greens.
Though ever-controversial Russell Brand sneers ‘oh look, things that grow naturally on planet better for you than sugary snacks’ in his daily instalment of ‘The Trews’, aka the true news, aka Brand’s wry spin on it. See here
It seems some people are a tad fed up with these incessant instructions on how to eat and what to eat and even how many grapes a portion size is, it’s 16 by the way.
On the other hand a recent poll carried out by Alton Towers Resort reported only 63% of children could identify an avocado with more than half having never tried it. (Don’t panic 85% could recognise David Beckham)
Perhaps some of us do need a bit more advice if we are going to truly wage this war against death, which as Deborah Ross (Journalist, The Times) mockingly puts it, is that unfortunate side-effect to being alive.
Here was me thinking I’d done well to survive my first week of work experience!
Luckily though, they’re all health freaks at JAM towers. Yep all about the fruit and veg here and absolutely no cakes in sight…none… not one… okay fine, our counter is basically a cake shrine. However even if our transition into rabbit-hood might be in it’s infantile stages, we know a certain someone who has got this whole thing down;
Our very own health conscious Maurice
AND before you fret about what to eat- there’s a man in India who claims to have only eaten dirt for 20 years and is perfectly healthy, thank you very much!
