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Make the Most of Your 5-a-Day

fruits

Published on 09 June 2020 02:33 PM

Healthy Living for Older People

Our Healthy Habits team has put together a series of articles to help you get and stay healthy.

We all know how important it is to have our 5-a-day, but do you know how to get the best out of your 5-a-day? It is said that our 5-a-day can help reduce risk of serious health conditions including stroke, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. So here are some top tips on how to make the most out of your 5-a-day:

  • Fruit is really good for us, but it does contain natural sugars. Therefore, our ideal 5-a-day should be 3 portions of veg and 2 portions of fruit. Vegetables are also higher in fibre which helps to prevent against a number of ailments and diseases
  • If you do have a sweet tooth, take advantage of those natural sugars in fruit and have a fruit salad or some fruit mixed with yoghurt as a healthier treat / dessert
  • Don't be tricked by fruit juice! As lovely as a glass of fresh fruit juice can be, it should only be 1 glass. Those natural sugars soon add up and can ruin your target of being healthy, rather than help it! Lots of fresh fruit juice can also be damaging to your teeth, just like sugary pop or sweets!
  • Did you know that steaming vegetables is actually better? When you steam vegetables, it helps keep as many of the vitamins in them ready for you to make use of rather than boiling them out!
  • You can have a small amount of dried fruit to count towards your 5-a-day. The portion should be about 30g! This is a much smaller portion than fresh fruit as the dehydrating process takes away a lot of the goodness of the fruit but leaves behind those pesky natural sugars.
  • POTATOES do not count as one your 5-a-day as they form the carbohydrate part of a meal, in the same way as rice, pasta or bread.

Diet and nutrition are just one of the areas of health that our new Healthy Habits programme will be focussing on. If you are interested in finding out more, please call 0191 287 8484
or 
email Caitlin: caitlin.calvert@ageuknorthtyneside.org.uk

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