7 fruit and veg portions a day

RideOnTime

http://www.channel4embarrassingillnesses.com/men-in-white-coats/flatulence/treatment/

This may help...

ugo.santalucia

The only tomatoes I eat are those I manage to grow in the garden in August-September... and a bucket load if I go down to Italy in summer. My mum manages to grow these beasts of about 2 pounds each, which you can slice in big steaks and dress with olive oil and salt... they are delicious...
In supermarkets, even in summer you only get Frankentomatoes... unless you go to a local market, where you might find some good ones

bernithebiker

The town's organic garden project is right next door to us, so we get a big basket of organic veg for 15 Euros a week. Whatever's in season, delicious!
And the 10 or so gardeners are all unemployed or disadvantaged locals, so everyone's a winner!
It's been such a success they want to double the size.

(And I no longer have to bother with our own veggie plot!)

ai_1

bernithebiker wrote:

The town's organic garden project is right next door to us, so we get a big basket of organic veg for 15 Euros a week. Whatever's in season, delicious!
And the 10 or so gardeners are all unemployed or disadvantaged locals, so everyone's a winner!
It's been such a success they want to double the size.

(And I no longer have to bother with our own veggie plot!)

That's the way to do it!

homers_double

Theres one in Todmoren, Incredible Edible or something like that. Not sure if I'd want a bunch of corriander grown where dogs cock their legs though.

lakesluddite

homers double wrote:

Theres one in Todmoren, Incredible Edible or something like that. Not sure if I'd want a bunch of corriander grown where dogs fool their legs though.

Is this the doggie version of "shut up legs!"?

Being a vegetarian, I should really be in smug-mode, but I think some days I struggle to eat 10 portions of anything, let alone f&v, but I nearly always get at least 5 a day, so I'm nearly there. Personally I just need to try to move the ratio away from fructose-rich fruit to more veg.

I think one relevant point is that with fruit, it's far better to eat it rather than drink it - juicing and blending will reduce some of the benefits, especially the fibre (allegedly).

homers_double

See now this is where filters are just stupid, I spoke of the act where a dog raises its hind leg and widdles on some corriander, it rhymes with tock...

ai_1

homers double wrote:

Theres one in Todmoren, Incredible Edible or something like that. Not sure if I'd want a bunch of corriander grown where dogs fool their legs though.

You do know that non-industrial fertiliser for food crops has usually been stuff that came from the rear of an animal for millenia?

homers_double

Yes, out the back of animals that generally eat grass and natural grains. Not from those that eat left over sunday roasts and biscuits that have been dropped on the floor.

ai_1

homers double wrote:

Yes, out the back of animals that generally eat grass and natural grains. Not from those that eat left over sunday roasts and biscuits that have been dropped on the floor.

Do you really think that makes a huge difference? If there were heavy metals or nuclear waste in the mix I'd be worried but aside from that I'm not sure it matters much provided it's well washed/peeled before consumption.

I it does bother you, definitely stay away from Champagne - for years (in the recent past) vinyards in the Champagne region were fertilised with all sorts of waste from Paris and surrounding areas including, reportedly, both domestic and medical waste.

buckmulligan

Ai_1 wrote:

It might be worth considering why the stuff from the markets doesn't last as long. Supermarkets have made a science, literally, of controlling ripening and shelf life of fruit and vegetables. With everything from selective breeding to refrigeration and gases used for supressing and triggering ripening. In my opinion the quest for uniform, pretty, long lasting fruit and veg has had a very detrimental effect on taste - I don't know if it's also had a negative effect on nutrition but that's quite possible too. The biggest victims of this that I've noticed are tomatoes. Most tomatoes are similar sized, unblemished and spherical but they have no flavour.....

Yeah, I saw a television program with Gregg Wallace (the bald guy from Masterchef) where he was looking into the behind-the-scenes operations of the supermarkets (at least the parts they wanted you to see). The way they treat fruit and veg is very interesting. They showed the process for bananas, whereby they keep the stock of under-ripe green ones in cold storage before they are needed and when it comes time to ship them out, they pump the room full of ethylene (iirc) for a few hours to kick start the ripening process. As you say they've got it down to a science so that they're just turning yellow by the time they hit the shelves.

Goodness knows what they do to other fruit (especially) and veg. I would presume the vast majority of it is hugely under-ripe when it's harvested, that's just the way things have to be done in such a massive globalised agriculture industry. It's hard to imagine that it doesn't have a detrimental effect on its nutritional content.

ai_1

BuckMulligan wrote:

Ai_1 wrote:

It might be worth considering why the stuff from the markets doesn't last as long. Supermarkets have made a science, literally, of controlling ripening and shelf life of fruit and vegetables. With everything from selective breeding to refrigeration and gases used for supressing and triggering ripening. In my opinion the quest for uniform, pretty, long lasting fruit and veg has had a very detrimental effect on taste - I don't know if it's also had a negative effect on nutrition but that's quite possible too. The biggest victims of this that I've noticed are tomatoes. Most tomatoes are similar sized, unblemished and spherical but they have no flavour.....

Yeah, I saw a television program with Gregg Wallace (the bald guy from Masterchef) where he was looking into the behind-the-scenes operations of the supermarkets (at least the parts they wanted you to see). The way they treat fruit and veg is very interesting. They showed the process for bananas, whereby they keep the stock of under-ripe green ones in cold storage before they are needed and when it comes time to ship them out, they pump the room full of ethylene (iirc) for a few hours to kick start the ripening process. As you say they've got it down to a science so that they're just turning yellow by the time they hit the shelves.

Goodness knows what they do to other fruit (especially) and veg. I would presume the vast majority of it is hugely under-ripe when it's harvested, that's just the way things have to be done in such a massive globalised agriculture industry. It's hard to imagine that it doesn't have a detrimental effect on its nutritional content.

Yeah, I think ethylene is correct.
The problem is that all these processes are aimed specifically at making them look good until they're purchased and has nothing to do with improving shelf life at home or good flavour, etc. Some last longer than you might expect of normally produced and handled fruit and veg, but others seem to have much faster deterioration as mentioned earlier in relation to packaged salads. I've also noticed that onions, which should last very well, often rot in no time. I think it's because they're aggressively refrigerated and if too cold they get frostbite and cells start rotting - just a guess.

buckmulligan

I find packaged spinach holds up quite well despite the woefully short Use By dates, usually a week at least.

As for the rest of them, just buy a small lettuce! It's probably cheaper.

Frank the tank

Appearantly, spinach now only has about 1/10th of the amount of iron in it that it had prior to 1918.

ballysmate

Frank the tank wrote:

Appearantly, spinach now only has about 1/10th of the amount of iron in it that it had prior to 1918.

Tory cuts?

lakesluddite

Ballysmate wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

Appearantly, spinach now only has about 1/10th of the amount of iron in it that it had prior to 1918.

Tory cuts?

Wasn't this put down to some scientist or other putting a decimal point in the wrong place? I'm sure that this is the reason that Popeye got such a surge of power from the green stuff, but then it came out that there had been this mistake, which meant that it was thought spinach was ten times as full of iron as it actually was? I'm sure it was on QI once.

homers_double

Ballysmate wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

Appearantly, spinach now only has about 1/10th of the amount of iron in it that it had prior to 1918.

Tory cnuts?

FTFY

nathancom

I think it may just be that vegetables are less calorie dense than fatty and carb rich foods. A study of Rhesus monkeys has shown dramatic increases in longevity simply by reducing calorie intake.
http://www.news.wisc.edu/22672

Pross

So if you starve yourself to death will you live forever?

Frank the tank

LakesLuddite wrote:

Ballysmate wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

Appearantly, spinach now only has about 1/10th of the amount of iron in it that it had prior to 1918.

Tory cuts?

Wasn't this put down to some scientist or other putting a decimal point in the wrong place? I'm sure that this is the reason that Popeye got such a surge of power from the green stuff, but then it came out that there had been this mistake, which meant that it was thought spinach was ten times as full of iron as it actually was? I'm sure it was on QI once.

I can't remember where I saw it but the reason given was the lack of nutrients in the soil due to over farming.