30 different fruit and veg per week - do you manage?

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yirara
yirara Posts: 9,478 Member
in Food and Nutrition
See question: do you manage to get 30 different fruit and veg per week? Coffee/tea and spices/herbs/garlic/olive oil count as 1/4 point. Highly processed food doesn't count.

I don't think I manage because I live alone, have limited fridge/freezer space and can't buy big amounts of fruit and veg because I simple can't store them before they go off. No aircon, thus if it's warmer fresh produce doesn't last long. Result: I tend to cook for 2-4 days in a row and recycle fresh ingredients. I'm pretty sure I'd get a good number over 4 weeks though.

So far (started yesterday/Thursday and likely including today and tomorrow):
1.00 oats
2.00 wholegrain wheat
3.00 apple
3.25 tea
4.25 aubergine
5.25 onion
5.50 garlic
5.75 olive oil
6.75 tomatoes
7.00 thyme
8.00 grapes
9.00 pear

expected from Sunday
10.00 bell pepper red
10.25 oregano
10.50 saffron
11.50 peas
12.50 spring onion
13.50 lemon
13.75 coffee

Replies

  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,417 Member
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    I am curious why you want to eat 30 different fruits and vegetables every week. I'm also curious why you count things like coffee, oats, and oregano as fruits/vegetables. Finally, I'm curious why onions and garlic, which I consider vegetables, don't count completely but a lemon does (I can't imagine sitting down and eating a whole lemon).

    I think that eating a diversity of produce is a good idea, and for sure it's good to get enough plant foods in our diets.

    I log pretty completely, but I don't log things like herbs and spices.

    If you make soup and throw in bay leaves but take them out before eating the soup, do you count those? If you eat a honeycrisp apple and a pink lady apple, does that count as two different kinds of fruit? If you use Mexican oregano one day and Mediterranean oregano a different day, is that two kinds vegetables? If you have short grain brown rice one day, long grain brown rice another day, basmati rice a third day, and sushi rice another day, is that four kinds of vegetables? If you use red beets to make vinegar beets one day and grate some golden beets into a salad another day, is that two kinds of vegetables? What about all the kinds of potatoes and sweet potatoes? Is there a benefit from eating different colors of sweet bells (green, red, orange, and yellow), or are they all providing similar nutrients? What about onions: red onions, white onions, yellow onions, sweet onions, and shallots are all pretty similar.

    I guess I'm asking more questions rather than giving any answers.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,994 Member
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    I believe yirara is answering the question and not the author.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,478 Member
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    It's a thing that's been going on in my group of friends at the moment. There's some explanation here: https://www.theguthealthdoctor.com/30-plant-points It's meant for gut health, a mix of good gut bacteria and challenged digestion or somesuch.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,994 Member
    edited May 3
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    The client reviews looked like the same writing style for every review without any actual info on the people leaving the reviews, I thought that was kinda strange and of course they're trying to sell something. Also and imo eating food that are appropriate of your immediate environment and locality is probably a better scenario for your gut than foods imported from various other countries, but that's just my opinion. As well, not everyone is going to respond favorably to all fruit and veg material and the reason FODMAP exists.
  • SafariGalNYC
    SafariGalNYC Posts: 971 Member
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    @yirara super interesting -
    I do get 30 different fruits and veg in a week.

    I just really like variety and I love veggies. It’s amazing how many different vitamins and antioxidants are in the rainbow of vegetables.

    I do think the microbiome is getting more attention in the news lately.. I hope that will be a good thing.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,478 Member
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    Wow, congratulations, @SafariGalNYC I also do love fruit and veg, but yeah, due to storage problems I just don't get quite so many.

    I think this whole thing is just a re-invention of 5 servings per day. Which I'm way over anyway, even with less variability. I'm not sure whether it counts, but I just added a big pickled gherkin to my list. I'm sure pickled food is good for you :) Besides, it's super tasty.

    I can see this thing as a kind of motivation for some to grab a new type of fruit or veg, or nuts maybe instead of a snack. At least I only now remembered I had the pickles in my fridge, and a fridge-cold gherkin is just lovely, juicy, and yummy (I like the sweet sour instead of salty)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,586 Member
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    yirara wrote: »
    Wow, congratulations, @SafariGalNYC I also do love fruit and veg, but yeah, due to storage problems I just don't get quite so many.

    I think this whole thing is just a re-invention of 5 servings per day. Which I'm way over anyway, even with less variability. I'm not sure whether it counts, but I just added a big pickled gherkin to my list. I'm sure pickled food is good for you :) Besides, it's super tasty.

    I can see this thing as a kind of motivation for some to grab a new type of fruit or veg, or nuts maybe instead of a snack. At least I only now remembered I had the pickles in my fridge, and a fridge-cold gherkin is just lovely, juicy, and yummy (I like the sweet sour instead of salty)

    I think that's complicated. Fermented (raw, unpasteurized) pickles have probiotics (yay!) but probably lots of salt (maybe boo!). Vinegar pickles may have moderate salt, but unless raw vinegar and unpasteurized, no particular natural probiotics.

    It is a vegetable, though. And like you, I like 'em. In my case, I like the salty-sour ones, sweet not so much. Looove raw sauerkraut and kim chi, particularly.

    I think it's slightly more than a V2.0 of 5 a day. Varied colors and types, varied micronutrients, differing beneficial phytochemicals, and diverse fiber types, yes?

    I agree with you about doing something like this as a way to challenge oneself to try new things. I worry about people who post here about the 30 a week without much history, who sound like they're thinking it's some kind of new magic formula or a thing that needs to be counted exactly in order to get benefits.

    IME, you're not like that.

    After there was chat about it here, I rough-counted one typical week. I had questions around the margins about exactly how to count if I were going to adhere to some formal system. But I got close enough to 30 (maybe even over), figured that was probably good enough. (I'm not trying to talk you out of it, though.)
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,478 Member
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    Oh nom! Sauerkraut, and kimchi! I could eat both every day. I also make my own pickles, mostly Asian style ones. Well, if I have enough space in my fridge. I certainly know what's inside, and it ain't preservatives other than salt and vinegar.

    Note to everyone reading: There's no magic here! Listen to AnnP! ❤️😅 But it's yummy and interesting to try new things.
  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,417 Member
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    I agree with @AnnPT77 about FERMENTED pickles versus vinegar or quick pickles. Fermented pickles (and other fermented vegetables) are WHERE IT'S AT. I just inherited a sauerkrout fermenting crock. I've been using a gallon glass jar. This might be fun to use. Not sure what I'll use for weight, but there's more kimchi in my future.

    I have a soup going on the stove with two kinds of hot chiles (Jalapeno and serrano), carrots, ginger, onion, garlic, celery, sage, oregano, some bay leaves, and a vegetable bouillon base. In a little while, I'll add some raw cashews that have been soaking in water for a few hours and some coconut flour. All that in one soup. I've made this before, and I really like it. I'll take the bay leaves out, so I wonder how that would count.

    For lunch I had the last of some cold soup made from beets, potatoes, celery, carrot, onion, mushroom, chiles, dill, caraway, and I don't even remember what else.

    I make a lot of green salads that start with a mix of leafy greens. They usually have carrots, red onion, some kind or kinds of various colors of sweet bell, jicama, celery, and sometimes cucumber. When I have sprouts that are ready to eat, I add some of those. Currently I sprout red clover and radish.

    I like veggies and fruits, and I try to eat enough of them with a decent variety, but I never really have a count.

    I'm in a group here (lose 1 pound a week and keep it off), and we do weekly challenges. This week's challenge is to eat fruit of different colors. People score a point for every color of the rainbow. We've done this before for fruits PLUS vegetables, but this one is just for fruit. Bonus points for something you've never eaten or any day you get three colors. Come join us if you like.

    I did buy a mango at the grocery because they were on sale, it's going to be Cinco de Mayo, and I haven't had one in a while. I bet a bagel that I was influenced by the challenge over on that group.
  • mjbnj0001
    mjbnj0001 Posts: 1,091 Member
    edited May 5
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    I haven't seen a points-rating system like you're describing (e.g., the fractional points for some things, full points for other).

    I understand the gut-health intention of a wide variety of vegetable foods per week - maybe "botanical" is a better term, since as some of the responses above show, "vegetable" has certain presets for some, different for others. I typically don't get 30 or more per week, but I do try to ensure I'm getting 15-20 per week and generally more than 10 per day in a healthy number of servings, not just a variety of tiny portions. Mostly "core stuff" (such as tomatoes, cuckes, bell peppers, onions, wheat, oats, broccoli, beans, apples, berries, various aromatics and herbs, etc.), with some additional seasonal adds, such as hard squash in winter and occasional specialty things ("special" for me - for instance, I tried celeriac recently prompted by another MFP user). It's tough. But I also follow an "eat the rainbow" pattern too, with multicolored dishes common. 70yo now, and vegan in my 20s, I've pretty much always been a good plant eater. But I'm also fully omnivorous, altough I am trimming my meat consumption down since January. For my gut health, I'm also doing more of the cooking (it's easier now that I'm retired and have the bandwidth), using less-processed items and as few highly-processed foodstuffs as I can. Including baking most of our bread products. I am also gradually including more "organic" produce than in the past, and I believe this helps the gut and general health too.

    Another source for this approach that 've been following a bit recently is the Zoe group's Youtube video blogs. Most are informative. There's a formal program offered as well, but I haven't made that leap. Undecided if I will.

    Good luck in your own journey.

    Edit: OK, I might re-assess my numbers. Adding in parsely, red and black pepper, thyme, paprika, other spices, etc., maybe I hit 30 by counts. But I wonder that even though they get "fractional" counts by that system mentioned above, they're still not generally contributing much to the process. Except the parsely in tabbouleh, LOL.

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