Cycling UK Forum

meic wrote:Excepting that potatoes (along with yams and cassava) have always been excluded from counting towards your quota.
Though sweet potatoes do count, which is a bit confusing for me who can not tell a sweet potato from a yam.

This is news to me, and seems to make no sense. The nutritional stats for (cooked) potato and sweet potato are, respectively:

Potato: carbs 20%, of which sugar 1.2%, fibre 2%
Sweet Potato: carbs 20%, of which sugar 6.5%, fibre 3.3%

Looks like the sweet potato has a lot more sugar in it than the ordinary potato (not surprisingly, seeing as it's "sweet" ).

Should bear in mind that there are two commonly-available cultivars of sweet potato, the orange-fleshed "Louisiana Yam" which is the variety normally found in supermarkets, and the white-fleshed "Boniato" which is more commonly sold in Asian shops. If you've tried both, you'll know that they have entirely different flavours and textures. I haven't found out whether there's any difference in nutrition between the two.

Going back to this matter of, why are sweet potatoes counted as "one of the five" whilst potatoes aren't? I suppose it's because, in British cuisine at any rate, sweet potato is less likely to be served up as the starchy accompaniment in a meal, i.e. as the alternative to potato, rice, pasta, bread or pastry. But this may not be true of non-European cuisines. We certainly use sweet potatoes in this way, from time to time. Variety is good!

Ten a day?
Absolutely stupid IMHO.
I cannot eat that much.

Ten portions of fruit and veg?
How can I fit in the carbs and protein too?

How much do these people think we eat?
Some of us aren't fat with huge stomachs.

Today I have eaten / will eat..

Potatoes, Leeks and carrots as part of a soup, with a large tomato for my lunch - 4

Evening meal -
another tomato based soup with onion carrot celery and red lentils - 3 more
Shepherds pie - lamb mince with peas carrots and broad beans - 2 more
Fresh pineapple desert. - 1 more

The portions of individual items are quite small…

And.. I only just made ten different fruit and veg in fairly small quantities.

I think its pretty healthy? What are they on about?

Al

MickF:
Then scale it down when calculating how much would be beneficial for you.!

Just so long as the reason that you can not eat this much fruit and veg is because you are too stuffed with beer, bacon butties, crisps, sweet, steaks and potatoes.
It is only advice on how to get the most beneficial nutrition, not a pass or fail.

I agree that it can be a bit of a challenge which requires a change in how we approach our diet, this change would probably benefit the majority of the UK's population. Most people are not going to even try and follow these recommendations but it is at least out there as an idea of what a healthy diet actually consists of.

The figure bandied around was 80g of each, which makes 800g of fruit and veg. The UN recommendations are 400g. If that was to be ten portions of 40g it would be more beneficial than five portions of 80g.
200g total is better than 100g which is better than nothing. Each additional fruit or veg portion is going to be less beneficial than the ones before but still offer something.

The portions of individual items are quite small…
And.. I only just made ten different fruit and veg in fairly small quantities.
I think its pretty healthy? What are they on about?

I would agree with that, if they are balanced with the sizes of the other parts of your menu.
You are probably eating a more healthy diet than somebody who doubles everything that you eat (without needing the extra food) and then reaches the target.

On the positive front, you will no longer need a macerator

80 g uncooked weight doesn't sound like much - or does it mean cooked weight? A lot easier to weigh out veg. before cooking, at any rate. As an example, this evening I weighed out about 300g of carrot, before cooking, to go with our evening meal, for the two of us. Carrots don't lose much on cooking, so I reckon it was almost double the '80g' portion size per head. And this doesn't seem excessive. I'd allow the same for any green vegetable - cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, etc. etc.

What else for this evening's meal? Well we had tofu fried in a spicy black pepper sauce - accompanied by basmati rice. A wholly vegetarian meal this time - and very tasty! I don't think any of the other things in the meal count towards the 'ten' - unless you allow the chopped-up shallots upon which the sauce was based. For lunch today we shared a pizza, with home-made tomato, spinach and mushroom topping. And plenty of salad. I reckon that accounts for at least four items - more if you count each salad ingredient separately....

But I'm still at sea when it comes to totting all this up.

meic wrote: ..... the reason that you can not eat this much fruit and veg is because you are too stuffed with beer, bacon butties, crisps, sweet, steaks and potatoes.

As it's a Friday, we'll be down the pub for drinks soon after 5, as there's a thriving Friday Five O'clock Club there.

I weigh a tad under 12st, and I'm as fit as a flea, and enjoy life. I don't eat loads and loads any more since I got older. I used to eat us out of house and home and my dad used to call me "the ever open door".

Some folk need more protein than others I reckon.
I've tried cereal and I've tried porridge for breakfast, I've even tried banana and toast, but unless I get a good protein-rich breakfast, I'm starving hungry by 10am. I couldn't go for a bike ride on fruit and veg and/or a "healthy" breakfast.

Breakfast this morning will be bacon and egg with bread and butter, maybe a few beanz too soon to be followed with a planned 40mile ride.

Lunch - dunno yet - but yesterday I had two thick doorsteps of (real) peanut butter on toast and a couple of chocolate digestives.
Yesterday evening, we had a home-made chicken curry - peppers, onions, mushrooms - and rice.
We skip an evening meal once or twice a week.

Listening to the experts, I fear you won't make it to 3pm

50miles done.

I came down into Plymouth at 12ish, and called in at Cap'n Jasper's on the Barbican.
http://www.capn-jaspers.co.uk

I took the opportunity this morning and took a piccy of my breakfast.
We had a bit of leftover mashed spuds, so I fried them off with the bacon and the egg. Also a quarter of a tin of beanz.
At Cap'n Jaspers, I had a large cheeseburger with onions, plus a mug of tea. £3.50 and you get 20p back when you return your mug.

So, today, I've had a portion of beanz, and some onions. That's two of my ten a day. Only another eight to go.

It says on the side of the can that you need half a tin of beans and you would need a whole medium sized onion.
So you are already scaling down, looking at those pictures it would be hard to classify that as a balanced meal unless you were referring to how you had positioned it on the plate.
I suppose that you are saving all of your fruit and veg ration for a monster stir-fry tonight.

Hops and barley will be about it.
Does brewer's yeast count?

Does brewer's yeast count?

Fungus are on the list, it will be quite a challenge having 80g of brewers' yeast though, are you up to it?
Wheat beer still has the yeast at the bottom, possibly a couple of grams if you are lucky. So just 40 pints (or twenty litres until Brexit is completed) may do it.
Though I suspect that the side-effects of the "medicine" will out weigh the benefits.

661-Pete wrote:

meic wrote:Excepting that potatoes (along with yams and cassava) have always been excluded from counting towards your quota.
Though sweet potatoes do count, which is a bit confusing for me who can not tell a sweet potato from a yam.

This is news to me, and seems to make no sense.

Sweet potatoes don't count. The excluded veg are tubers, as defined in group 8.34 of Eurocode 2: Potato, Jerusalem artichoke, Sweet potato, Yam, Yam bean, Cassava & Taro.

I'm already averaging 8 a day, another apple a day and that wouldn't be far off ten.

axel_knutt wrote:

661-Pete wrote:

meic wrote:Excepting that potatoes (along with yams and cassava) have always been excluded from counting towards your quota.
Though sweet potatoes do count, which is a bit confusing for me who can not tell a sweet potato from a yam.

This is news to me, and seems to make no sense.

Sweet potatoes don't count. The excluded veg are tubers, as defined in group 8.34 of Eurocode 2: Potato, Jerusalem artichoke, Sweet potato, Yam, Yam bean, Cassava & Taro.

I'm already averaging 8 a day, another apple a day and that wouldn't be far off ten.

That depends on who you use as your source.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38048957

axel_knutt wrote: ........... another apple a day and that wouldn't be far off ten.

Apples?
I can't remember when I last ate one.
I used to like them, but they're too sweet nowadays. It's me that's changed, not the apples I suppose.
Same as oranges.

I like bananas, and most berries - except strawberries (too sweet for me)
Blackcurrants, raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries etc.
Not keen on blueberries though.

Veg I like. Can't think of any I don't - above or below ground. They can be raw or cooked.
Beans of any description I like too.