5 Top Tips on How to Squeeze in your 5-a-day
Making your ‘5-a-day’ a priority is one of the easiest little Change-ups you can make to help you feel good throughout 2022. Eating a wide range of colours, trying out new ways to season your veg and blending up your 5-a-day into a smoothie are among the many ways to add more good stuff into your diet. As a part of Creamline’s Change-ups - our collection of small tips and hacks to help you make small, positive changes with a big impact - we have five top tips on how to squeeze in your 5-a-day!
Blend up to Change-up
One of the easiest, sneakiest ways
to pack in some extra fruit and veggies is through smoothies. Not all smoothies
are created equal, however! Many of the prepared smoothies found in
supermarkets contain added sugar that put you over the current guidelines on
added sugar.
Blending up your own smoothies at
home is a healthier option than store-bought smoothies – and there’s more
freedom with what you put in! These 9 healthy smoothie recipes from Healthline not
only help you get in more vitamins and minerals from fruit (think Vitamin C,
Vitamin A, potassium and folate) but also more fibre and protein.
Eat a wide range of colours!
Dot colourful fruit and veggies
in bowls around your kitchen or put them in the places you commonly reach for
processed snacks and treats. Research confirms that eating a rainbow of fruit
and veg helps you get a wide range of nutrients - many of the beneficial compounds in plants are linked to their colour pigments.
Eating a colourful plate can also make you feel better. Did you know that
natural foods release high levels of dopamine? Apples, bananas and berries are among
the highest producers of this mood-enhancing chemical!
A colourful plate also contains thousands of phytonutrients - natural chemicals produced in fruit and veg containing antioxidant properties that help prevent damage to cells throughout the body. Painting your plate with the colours of the rainbow can help you live a longer, healthier life. The colourful skins of foods like apples, aubergines and peaches contain the richest supply of phytonutrients, so try to avoid peeling them!
Get experimental
Easily squeeze in your 5-a-day by
experimenting how you eat fruit and veggies. Like our tip on sneaking fruit and
veg into smoothies, you can also squeeze in more veggies by turning them into
soups, sauces or even croquettes!
Soups, like our spicy parsnip soup, are an excellent way to pack in a few vegetables at once,
boosting your daily intake of fibre, vitamins, and minerals.
Change up your pasta sauces by
making them from scratch with extra vegetables. A sneaky way to up your veggie
intake, homemade sauces are miles tastier and healthier than supermarket-bought
sauces! Start with our tomatoes as a base, sourced fresh from local markets, and simply add
in more veggies and herbs of your choice, such as carrots, diced onions and
garlic, peppers, and leafy greens like spinach. This tip also works excellently
if you have picky kids!
Throw some berries on it!
Throwing some berries on your food
is one of the quickest (and most delicious) ways to get in some extra fruit.
Breakfast is the perfect time to spruce up your plate with berries. Take our
popular Thatchers Rolled Porridge Oats as a great base for a healthy breakfast and throw some
berries on top. Don’t forget your yoghurt either: add some berries on top for a
morning burst or mid-afternoon pick-me-up.
Studies have found that
blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries pack the highest antioxidant
activity of commonly consumed fruits, next to pomegranates, so don’t skip out
on these small powerhouses!
Make your veggies taste irresistible: try out new ways to season your veg!
One guaranteed way to up your
vegetable intake is by trying out new, appetising ways to season your
vegetables, from Italian mixed herbs and cajun spice seasoning to Indian
tandoori spice!
Vegetable dishes can be among the
most appetizing dishes when done right! Our Get Cooking recipes have been
created with maximum taste in mind, made with fresh fruit and veg sourced from
local markets.
Take our roasted sweet potato salad, for example, which combines bite-sized sweet potato
with spinach, spring onions, lemon and lime juice, apple and avocado – seasoned
to taste!
Our vegetable wonton soup, seasoned with Chinese five spice,
is also irresistibly tasty and can be as spicy or as mild as you like it. This
recipe makes sure that broccoli – one of the healthiest but plainest vegetables
- is full of flavour.
Handpicked fresh from local markets
Creamline’s fruit and veg is handpicked fresh from the finest local markets so you
can reach your 5-a-day goal while supporting local producers and clocking up
fewer food miles. Discover more little Change-ups you can make by clicking here and explore our
range of locally sourced fresh fruit and veg by clicking here!
