Getting Your 5 a Day, Healthy Eating Advice For Over 50s

Introduction

Squeezing in and achieving the recommended 5 fruit and vegetables a day may seem a tad daunting if you’re not used to it but it is a lot simpler than you may have first thought.

Fruits and vegetables provide you with essential vitamins and minerals that help to prevent disease and illnesses. The British heart foundation’s studies have shown that the nitrates in some green vegetables can help widen blood vessels and thin the blood, meaning that eating more fruit and vegetables can reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Getting your 5 a day really is simple, follow our tips and tricks below to start reaping the benefits. You don’t have to stop at just 5 either, there’s no such thing as too much fruit or veg just make sure you are having at least 5 a day.

What Exactly Is Your 5 a Day?

Use Veggies to Bulk Out Your Meals

You don’t have to change your regular dishes too drastically or make any big changes to your diet to increase your vegetable intake, simply start bulking out your meals. This change can also result in your meals stretching further for left overs for the next day or throw in the freezer for easy meal later in the month.

To bulk out your rice dishes use frozen or tinned peas and sweetcorn, simply add them in with your rice half way through cooking. An omelette is a great dish that can boost your veggie intake, from mushrooms to tomatoes and peppers the options are endless, just add to the egg mixture and cook away. Jazz up your morning Weetabix or porridge by adding fruit, cinnamon baked apple porridge is ideal around this time for welcoming the autumn season.

Top up your pizza with vegetable toppings like mushrooms, onions and peppers, not only will it taste delicious but will keep you fuller for longer with the added fibre.

To bulk up mince dishes and make them much healthier, lentils are an excellent option for meals such as spaghetti Bolognese, chilli and cottage pie. Lentils don’t always need soaking before cooking they can be added into dishes easily from a tin.

Veggie Packed Meals

Stews aren’t only to be enjoyed in the colder winter months, they can be appreciated all year round and a cracking way to squeeze in plenty of vegetables. Casseroles are also an easy meal to pack in extra vegetables and pulses like butter beans. Stir fry’s also a great way to get in extra veggies you can also use frozen veggies for ease.

Soup is a warming and comforting meal that offers a lot of health benefits, depending on the ingredients, of course, a vegetable soup can easily be made from scratch by cooking 700g of frozen mixed veg in 500ml of vegetable stock, adding seasoning and then blending. The options for soup are limitless with varieties of vegetables and lean meats.

Salads may be an obvious option for easily getting in your 5 a day, but you can change it up by opting for warm salads or adding fruits to your typical salads to make it a bit more exciting, also start having a side salad along with your meals that you struggle to add veg to.

Make Some Swaps

Trade in those store-bought tomato based, sugar filled sauces and make your own from a tin of chopped tomatoes, herbs, seasoning and garlic this will reduce your sugar intake and cut down on your costs at the supermarket too. If you prefer a creamier tomato sauce simply add some fresh cream to your homemade sauce. You can also use plum tomatoes as just two of these count as one of your five a day.

Swap out your white potatoes for sweet potatoes as unlike white potatoes they count as one of your five a day, so you will be consuming healthier chips, mash and baked potatoes.

Change your chocolatey puddings for fresh fruit and low-fat yoghurt, swap out ice cream for frozen yoghurt bark sprinkled with dark chocolate and blueberries. For crumbles switch out store bought and make your own from frozen fruit and add in some oats to your crumble toppings.

Conclusion

Upping your daily fruit and vegetable intake isn’t too tricky and reaching the five-a-day goal is easy once you start implementing these changes and additions to your existing diet and will become second nature. By achieving your five a day you will notice that you start feeling better and can also boost your mood whilst feeding your body those all-essential vitamins and nutrients.