10 days of 10 a day

A while back I gave myself a challenge to eat 7 portions of fruit and vegetables a day for 7 days.  A recent review of research by Imperial College however, has now suggested increasing this to 10 portions is where we need to be.

Now this is a challenge when you consider that even the most positive survey (which I doubt) proudly proclaims "A third of us are eating at least 5 a day!"  Which also means two thirds, i.e. the vast majority in the UK are not.  I also have the sneaking suspicion the Daily Mail only published that article because we were better than the German's at something.  #Justsayin'

So my plan is to eat 10.  Yep, 10 portions a day.  Twice the amount the NHS recommend currently.  There is a quote I love from Michael Pollan, he's not a dietitian but a journalist, his quote sums up what these next few days will be all about.

So the challenge is, can I do it?  For 10 days can I eat 10 portions of fruits and vegetables?

Well, honestly I'm not sure.  I've got a busy couple of weeks ahead as always but when is a better time to try it?  When I'm busy and stressed, if I can still do it then it will be a piece of (carrot) cake to carry on when I have time off or have slightly less going on.  Hang on, that never happens?  You get the idea though.

So 10 days.  In my previous challenge one of the key things I found is I had to do a lot of food shopping.  I'm going to be a little less strict with myself though and allow anything which fits into the NHS guidelines of 5 a day rather than only fresh fruits and vegetables.  So what does that mean?

5 a day according to the NHS includes:

• Fruits and vegetables (raw or cooked), each portion around 80g or 1 handful
• 1 portion of pulses per day (more than 1 portion still only counts as 1 portion)
• Frozen fruits and vegetables
• Tinned vegetables and unsweetened fruit
• 1 portion (30g) dried fruit (more than 30g still only counts as 1 portion)
• Fruits and vegetables within pre prepared foods

They're a bit more vague nowadays on whether fruit juices and smoothies count so I'm not going to include them.

I hope you will join me in my journey, I will keep you posted by the day on how it's going and put links below so you can read more about my experience:

Day 1 of 10 a day
Day 2 of 10 a day
Day 3 of 10 a day
Day 4 of 10 a day
Day 5 of 10 a day
Day 6 of 10 a day
Day 7 of 10 a day
Day 8 of 10 a day
Day 9 of 10 a day
Day 10 of 10 a day
10 a day, what did I learn?