Are You Eating Enough Fruit and Veg?
Five a Day
The second biggest cause of cancer, after smoking, is an unhealthy and unbalanced diet. Eating a nutritious diet could reduce your risk of developing cancer by a third.
Fruit and vegetables as part of a balanced diet provide us with many vitamins, minerals and fibre - all important ingredients in keeping us healthy. It is recommended that we eat at least five portions a day. This will help protect against coronary heart disease and certain cancers.
These pages provide information on how to include the correct amount and variety of fruit and vegetables in your diet with detailed serving sizes and tasty and versatile tips and delicious recipes.
Variety is the spice of life and to maintain a balanced diet you should try to aim for 5 combined servings of fruit and vegetables. These can be found in dried, fresh, tinned and frozen produce as well as soups, juices, cereals and ready-prepared meals. But convenience foods can also be high in added sugar, fat and salt, so it is important to always check the nutrition information on food packaging.
Recipes
There are currently seven recipes on the website and we hope to increase the number over the coming months. They all show how to quickly prepare a drink or meal using fresh fruit or vegetables. If you have any simple recipes you would like to share, please send them by email to headquarters@somerset.nhs.uk
Further Information on Healthy Eating
NHS Choices - Healthy Eating
NHS Choices - 5 a Day
NHS Choices - Good Food
NHS Choices - Lose Weight
NHS Choices - Vegetarian Health
NHS Choices Tool - Healthy Eating Self-Assessment
NHS Choices - Healthy Eating on a Budget (video)
