The Go for 2&5 fruit and vegetable campaign is one of Australia’s most well known healthy eating campaigns to date, running around the country from 2002 to 2012. The Australian Government created the Australian Dietary Guidelines which offers an overall recommendation for five major food groups to help improve Australians overall health and wellbeing.
Guideline 2: Enjoy a wide variety of nutritious foods from five groups every day, including plenty of vegetables (different types, colours), legumes, beans and fruit.
Whilst fruit and vegetable intake has increased most Australians still missed the mark. The ABS revealed that in 2014–15, 50% of adults and 32% of children at insufficient serves of fruit, and 93% of adults and 95% of children ate sufficient serves of vegetables.
The most confusing part of is as each different fruit and vegetables has different nutritional values a standard serving size can vary greatly.
Standard Serve of Vegetables
According to Eat For Health 1 serve of vegetables is about 75g (100–350kJ) or:
- ½ cup cooked green or orange vegetables (for example, broccoli, spinach, carrots or pumpkin)
- ½ cup cooked dried or canned beans, peas or lentils (preferably with no added salt)
- 1 cup green leafy or raw salad vegetables
- ½ cup sweet corn
- ½ medium potato or other starchy vegetables (sweet potato, taro or cassava)
- 1 medium tomato
Standard Serve of Fruit
A standard serving size in Australia is about 150g (350kJ) or:
- 1 medium apple, banana, orange or pear
- 2 small apricots, kiwi fruits or plums
- 1 cup diced or canned fruit (no added sugar)
Or only occasionally:
- 125ml (½ cup) fruit juice (no added sugar)
- 30g dried fruit (for example, 4 dried apricot halves, 1½ tablespoons of sultanas)
Source: Eat For Health
We spoke to sports dietitian and co-founder of the Health & Performance Collective Chloe McLeod for her top three tips to up your intake.
- Spread intake out across the day, rather than trying to get it all in at once
- Include veggies in your snacks. For example, veggie sticks with hummus is an easy one to up your intake
- Be organised and have fruit and vegetables on hand in the fridge/at work/in your lunch box - you’ll eat what you have around!
If you’re after some recipe inspiration, check out our veggie-loaded vegetarian recipes.
