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Picture source: NAS Website
Tomorrow, 10th August 2020, marks the start of National Allotments Week (NAW), which is a society initiative set up by the National Allotment Society in 2002. The initiative was set up as a “way of raising awareness of allotments and the role they play in helping people to live healthier lifestyles, grow their own food, develop friendships and bolster communities.”
Now although we are a community garden and not an allotment, many aspects are similar, such as growing fruit and vegetables predominantly, which is why we want to celebrate the initiative also.
The theme for this years NAW is Growing Food for Health and Wellbeing, which is particularly important at the best of times, but certainly even more so now with the acute and chronic impact COVID19 and the pandemic has had and continue to have on public health. For this blog, I wanted to point out some of the health benefits of eating fruit and vegetables in line with the NAS theme and you can also check out two previous blogs, one on why community gardens are vital during and after COVID19 and the other on, why all the hype about community gardens, to see some of the other benefits on health.
The British Nutrition Foundation has the following list of key principles when it comes to the recommendations for fruit and vegetables:
Aim to have at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables each day.
Fruit and vegetables should make up around one-third of what we eat each day. They are a very important part of a healthy, balanced diet, as they are good sources of fibre, as well as having lots of essential vitamins and minerals.
Eating lots of fruit and vegetables can help you maintain a healthy weight as they are naturally low in calories and fat (as long as they aren’t roasted or fried in lots of butter or oil), and the evidence does suggest that having your 5 A DAY could reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke, some types of cancer and obesity.
Variety is important! Different types and colours of fruits and vegetables contain different combinations of important nutrients, like fibre and vitamins, which our bodies need to stay healthy. So, to get the most nutritional benefit out of your 5 A DAY, try to have a wide variety of fruits and vegetables from each of the colour groups – green, yellow, red, purple, orange and white!
They also suggest that only 8% of children between 11 and 18 eat the recommended 5 portions a day. That’s a shocking figure. You can find out a bit more about what constitutes as a portion and what is and is not included via the British Nutrition Foundations website. Why is it though that they recommend this? Why should we eat 5 a day? What will it do?
Picture source: Google
Fruit and vegetables in our diet offer a range of things that are good and have a positive effect on our health. For example, vitamins (A, B, C), folate (also known as folic acid), fibre and potassium. Find out more about these here:
As suggested by the British Nutrition Foundation, fruits and vegetables you eat can be frozen, tinned, dried and juiced but you need to be careful of sugar content in some of the latter choices. Being a community garden founder and member/volunteer, as well as nursing student, I am all about the fresh option though. Off course, not all vegetables can be eating straight away and you need to prepare and cook some, but just about all fruits can be eaten straight away. The benefit of growing your own, or sourcing yours from allotments or community gardens is that they will be super fresh, usually organic and supporting local projects/initiatives. I don’t expect everyone to stop shopping in supermarkets for these items, but some of these have travelled across the globe and been in packaging for several hours, sometimes days.
I wanted to share with you some of the vitamins and minerals found in fruit and vegetables and which ones contain which. In the community garden currently, you can visit this blog to see what we have growing at the moment, but of course, will be looking to expand this as time goes on.
Picture source: Wix stock photo
Vitamin A
According to the NHS, vitamin A is important by helping maintain your body's natural defence against illness and infection (the immune system) work properly, helping vision in dim light and keeping skin and the lining of some parts of the body, such as the nose, healthy.
Vitamin B
According to the NHS, vitamin B is important by helping break down and release energy from food, keep the nervous system healthy and keeps skin and the eyes healthy.
Vitamin C
According to the NHS, vitamin C is important by helping to protect cells and keeps them healthy, maintaining healthy skin, blood vessels, bones and cartilage and helping with wound healing.
Folate (folic acid) According to the NHS, folate is important by helping the body form healthy red blood cells and reduce the risk of central neural tube defects, such as spina bifida, in unborn babies.
Fibre
According to the NHS, fibre in our diet is associated with a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer.
Potassium
According to the NHS, potassium is important by helping control the balance of fluids in the body, and also helps the heart muscle work properly.
The following fruit and vegetables contain ALL of the following: vitamins A, B (1, 2 & 6), C and folate:
Apricots, apples, bananas, blackberries, cherries, grapefruit, grapes, kiwi, lemons, limes, lychee, mangos, melons, oranges, peaches, pears, pineapples, plums, pumpkins, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, artichokes, asparagus, avocados, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, chicory, courgettes, sweetcorn, cucumber, leeks, mushrooms, olives, onions, peas, potatoes, radish, and spinach.
You can read much more in detail about the vitamins and minerals important for health and wellbeing here.
If you want to increase you intake, I particularly like the British Nutrition Foundations top tips in increasing your intake of fruit and vegetables:
Texture - If someone in your family doesn’t like the texture of chopped vegetables, try grating carrots or courgettes into your food to add flavour. Or make a soup or sauce with added vegetables and blend until smooth.
Seasonality - Try a new fruit or vegetable each week to increase variety. Why not pick seasonal fruits and vegetables* which can often be cheaper.
Fruit juice - Have a glass (150ml) of unsweetened 100% orange juice with fortified cereal for breakfast – the vitamin C in orange juice can help the body absorb iron from the cereal.
Frozen varieties - Frozen fruit and vegetables can contain just as many nutrients as fresh. Indeed, as they are frozen rapidly after harvest, they may contain more of some vitamins than fresh vegetables that are a few days old. They could also help you reduce waste as they keep much longer and are more economical as you only have to cook what you need.
Tinned varieties - Choose tinned fruits or vegetables in natural juice or water, with no added sugar or salt.
I hope you have enjoyed this blog and enjoy National Allotments Week and are now on tract to eat much more fruit and vegetables as part of your daily diet.
Not only high fiber foods but healthy fiber foods are more important for health.