10 Ways to Get Your 10-a-Day Without Really Trying

Imperial College London recently released the results of a study that found that those who eat at least 10 portions of vegetables and fruit a day have a far lower risk of many diseases. But most people in the UK are still struggling to even eat 5 a day!

As we cut back on sugar in our family, we made moves towards improving our diet as a whole, and the biggest change was from processed to whole foods. Doing this meant we automatically found ourselves consuming more vegetables, and as we did so, we reaped the rewards of better health. A couple of years down the line, we aim for at least 8 portions of vegetables & fruit a day where possible, with 1-2 (3 maximum) coming from fruit and at least 2 portions of leafy greens in there somewhere. As we have made this an ordinary part of our diet, I have come to discover some tips & tricks that help to keep our intake high, and I wanted to share them with you to try and help you do the same.

So here are 10 ways to get your 10-a-day without really trying:

1. Rethink breakfast. I’m putting the tough one first. It took me quite a while to really get onboard with breakfast being something other than cereals & toast. It had been years since I’d had anything but, or some variation thereof. But I took baby steps, and it really paid off: first, I found some low-no sugar cereals I could fall back on on busy days; next, I started writing in at least 2-3 egg-based breakfasts into my weekly meal plan, often served with bacon and tomatoes or avocado; and once we had got a bit more used to savoury breakfasts, I started pushing the boundaries a little and serving vegetable-based breakfasts – we are still working on this, but breakfast quesadillas packed with peppers, broad beans, tomatoes, spring onions and avocados and a favourite in our house, as is Kitchen Stewardship‘s sweet potato, broccoli & egg hash. And of course, don’t forget my remake of a sausage & egg McMuffin, complete with two types of veggies! Or try these delicious aubergine (eggplant) & chickpea (garbanzo beans) sandwiches – equally good for lunch or breakfast. Once you start to eat vegetables for breakfast, it’s really surprising how normal it becomes! And of course, if you really cannot face it, make this a low sugar opportunity for some fresh whole fruit by making my green pancakes with blueberry sauce or some unsweetened stewed apples over a bowl of yogurt (coconut or dairy) or porridge (oats, quinoa or buckwheat) topped with nuts, seeds and cinnamon.
2. Make veg the star and add at least 2 more types to every recipe. When you are planning a meal, think more about the vegetables than anything else. Make at least half, but ideally more like 2/3 of the plate vegetables (add a little fruit too if it works!), leaving a little space for protein, good fats and whole grains. When you follow a recipe, add at least 2 extra veggies. I find that vegetables are sorely lacking in the majority of recipes. I always always have chopped frozen spinach in my freezer, as it is easily added to any sauce and just gets absorbed so you barely notice it’s there, adding nutrition and a portion of vegetables without changing a dish at all. Why not try my quick 3-bean chilli, make my pizza and top with as many veggies as possible, or try your hand at adapting your family favourite recipes. Make it competitive – who in your family can think of the tastiest way to add the most vegetables?
3. Snack on vegetables. This is by far the best way to get vegetables into you and your kids. If my kids are hungry for a snack, I put out a plate of roasted beetroot or a vegetable dip or some raw carrots, celery or radishes. I figure, if they are really hungry, and not just bored or trying to get something unhealthy out of me, then they will eat it. And when they really are hungry, they eat it all up. Suddenly they have had 1, 2 or even 3 portions of vegetables before they’ve even had lunch. Not bad for a 15 month old and a 2 and a half year old!
4. Make your food processor your best friend. My food processor is the hardest working appliance in our house, after the oven and hob! Most days it will be on multiple times, and it really comes into its own in making our meals veggie-packed! The best ways to use it are for grating and pureeing. The reason for this is it not only makes it incredibly easy to add more veg to just about anything, but it also makes more expensive things like meat stretch further and so keeps the budget in mind. Whenever I am making a meal with minced (ground) meat or with a sauce, I get the grater going. You can easily add grated carrots, parsnips, courgettes (zucchini), onions, sweet potatoes, celeriac, swede, or many many other vegetables to most minced meat meals without anyone really noticing. I don’t advocate “hiding” healthy foods – by all means, tell everyone what’s in there! But it is an easy way to add vegetables to a dish while barely changing the flavour and texture. It also bulks the ground meat out and makes it stretch further. And if I’m not grating vegetables into meat or sauces, I am usually pureeing roasted pumpkin, sweet potatoes, squash, beetroot, or other root vegetables to add to sauces or mash or whatever else I can!
5. Check out some low carb recipes for inspiration. Although we watch our refined carbohydrate intake, and obviously avoid sugar in the form of fructose, we are not a “low carb” family. However, I love getting inspiration from low carb bloggers because I think they often have some fantastic ideas about how to make really nutrient dense recipes and how to seriously up your veggie intake. The amazing uses of cauliflower in the form of pizza crust, “rice” and even “bread” that have become very trendy help you to make sure veggies make up a large part of your plate, and there are many more ideas out there as to how to make the best use of vegetables as the bulk of your meal.
6. Make desserts primarily fruit, and make treats another excuse for upping your intake. We keep treats, even sugar free ones that contain sweeteners we are happy to use, mostly for the weekend or occasional Wednesday night date night. I get out some of my favourite dessert recipes or try out something new and we enjoy a yummy treat that really is just a treat rather than a daily occurrence. If (and only if) we are still hungry after a meal on a day-to-day basis, we have fruit and/or yogurt (my husband and I have a square of 85%+ dark chocolate with a cup of tea most nights, too!). Our fruit intake is usually 1-3 portions of fruit a day, and these mostly occur at breakfast and after lunch or dinner (and always whole fruit – no juice or dried fruit). Fruit is our dessert, and we enjoy it as we would have a piece of cake back in our sugar eating days. When you give up sugar, fruit starts to taste ridiculously sweet, and there is nothing more delicious than a bowl of ripe strawberries with a dollop of yogurt or cream after dinner. And for those times when we are having a “treat”? Well, who says it can’t still contain fruit? Yes, sometimes we are enjoying a couple of sugar free Bourbon biscuits or a sugar free peanut butter swirl brownie. But sometimes it’s nice to even have the treats centred around fruit by enjoying a low sugar pear & ginger muffin or a sugar & sweetener free banana cake.
7. If you get bored or aren’t sure about a vegetable, try it a different way. This works particularly well for kids in my experience. If you aren’t a fan of kale, why not try it blended into a green smoothie or green blender pancakes (you can’t taste it, I promise!)? If you don’t like beetroot, why not roast it and puree it into some homemade hummus to make a pink dip? If you find raw carrots too crunchy and strongly flavoured, try roasting them until they are soft and deliciously sweet. My kids are still too young to really cope with salad as it takes so much chewing, but a bowl of lettuce soup will be lapped up in minutes! Experiment with different cooking methods, textures and combinations with your vegetables – you may be surprised at what you like. I have had a deep hatred of mushrooms for most of my life (to the point where they have made me gag for as long as I can remember), but I can now eat thinly sliced ones cooked in a sauce without even hesitating, and I have found that I actually really enjoy them raw chopped into a salad! You never know until you try, right?
8. Think outside the supermarket. There are literally thousands of varieties of fruits and vegetables in the world, but we see only a small handful of the familiar suspects in our supermarkets! Not only does this render vegetables boring fairly quickly, but it is also not as good for our health – studies have shown time and time again that variety is key to good health, and that “eating the rainbow” and as many different types of fruits & vegetables as possible is the best way to ensure we are getting all the nutrients and vitamins our bodies need. So take a trip to a farmers market or a greengrocers and be surprised by the variety. No longer just potatoes, onions and peas, you’ll discover kohlrabi, celeriac and chioggia beets. Some of our favourite vegetables have come from us just trying something new or stepping outside our comfort zone when it comes to food. You could be missing out on something you’d truly love without even realising it!
9. Have at least 2 vegetarian dinners a week. Most of our lunches and 2-3 dinners a week are veggie for us. Partly this is for cost reasons: we would rather spend our money on really really good quality, ethically sourced and better-for-us meat and just eat less of it than have it daily but skimp on quality. And the truth is, vegetarian meals can be some of the most delicious and best for us meals, as long as you do it right. It’s easy to cut back on meat and simply fill the plate with carbs like pasta, or worse yet, simply switch to quorn or soy-based vegetarian substitutes with ingredients lists the length of my arm that are full of unrecognisable and very unhealthy items. No, the trick to doing vegetarian meals well is to make the focus on the vegetables rather than the meat substitute or carbs. Make a delicious vegetarian lasagne that is mostly veg and only a little pasta. Or make some vegetarian burgers from your favourite vegetables (we adore these carrot burgers and the BLATT (beetroot, lettuce, avocado, tomato & tahini) ones that sometimes make an appearance on the I Quit Sugar 8 Week Program and make them very often!), or cook up a big batch of 3-bean chilli! And swap the usual vegless sandwiches for an aubergine (eggplant) & chickpea one. Or a sugar free sweet & sour stir fry. Trust me, meat will be far from your mind when food tastes this good…
10. Quit sugar. I have always thought I had a “healthy” diet and ate plenty of fruit & veg. But the truth is, quitting sugar changed my tastebuds and cravings to a point where I realised how little vegetables I really had been eating and enjoying. By far the biggest benefit of quitting sugar for me was a newfound love of vegetables & fruit. Fruit suddenly tasted unbelievably sweet – like pudding all by itself! – and vegetables started tasting sweet and way way more delicious than I remembered, too! Sweet potato tastes like dessert, and vegetables I always found bland or boring suddenly became yummy and appearing in most meals! This is the only tip that will take more effort, but it’s worth it, and long-term, it makes consuming large amounts of vegetables & fruit far easier and pretty much effortless. It even makes it cheaper, as you end up cooking more at home and from scratch, so more of your budget is spent on seasonal, cheap, local vegetables!

I hope these tips help you to up your intake of vegetables & fruit. Now that we are consistently getting 8 portions a day, I’m starting to think it might be time to challenge ourselves as a family to up it even more to reach the “at least 10-a-day” recommendation! Maybe for you today it is simply taking a few steps to get just 5-a-day for now, or perhaps you get 5-a-day but want to up it to 7 or 8. Try that for a while until you have it down, and then go for 10, or more! It doesn’t have to be hard, and it doesn’t have to be expensive. And it will change your life and your health for the better. It certainly has ours!