The recommendation is a minimum 2 serves of fruit and 5 serves of vegetables daily. Did you know that only around 4.2% of Australian adults (ABS, 2022) hit that target of consuming the recommended intake of fruits and vegetables each day? 4.2%. We have work to do.
A visual reference of fruits and vegetables is a useful tool to have when you’re eyeballing your intake over the course of the day, because hopefully you’re not walking about with a kitchen scale to measure your 75g serve of vegetables and 150g serve of fruit each time you plan to eat it.
As a guide by size/plate/serve here are the individual serving sizes for FRUIT and VEGETABLES with a link to the video reference on Instagram for you – hit save there and refer to it weekly.
The recommendations for FRUIT intake is 2-3 serves daily. Watch the video reference HERE.
A serve could include :
🍏 1 medium apple
🍊 1 medium orange
🍇 Bunch (decent handful) grapes
🍌 1 medium banana
🥝 2 smaller pieces of fruit e.g. 2x kiwi
🍓 10-12 strawberries (decent handful) or punnet of other berries
😋 a much smaller portion – say 1-2 tbsp dried fruit such as sultanas
🍐 1 cup tinned fruit (no sugar added) more occasionally, this is a good solution for those who don’t have access to fresh fruit (I quite like using tinned fruit in icy poles and baking too – I’ll share a recipe for those soon).
The recommendations for VEGETABLES is 5-7 serves daily. Watch the video reference HERE.
A serve of vegetables as a general reference is 1 cup raw / leafy / low starch vegetables or 1/2 cup starchy / cooked vegetables / cooked legumes. One serve of vegetables could include:
- 1 cup lettuce/leafy greens / 1 cup kale/cabbage
- 1 cup sliced vegetables e.g. carrot + cucumber (or 2 carrots)
- 1 med tomato
- 1/2 cup corn, approx a cob
- 1/2 cup cooked starchy veg e.g pumpkin, potato, sweet potato
- 1/2 cup cooked legumes e.g chickpeas and soy beans (legumes count for quality protein in your day- ticking more than one box is a great result!)
