Posted on December 10, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Did you see the article yesterday which mentions that the government are thinking of adding it’s five a day label to tinned foods which contain fruit and veg and also ready meals?

My initial reaction to this was one of outrage! How can ready meals count to your 5 a day? surely this is doing but encourage people to continue to eat processed foods rather than make their own foods from fresh. I know that people will argue sometimes they don’t have time to cook and at least if they do have to have a ready meal at least they will have more knowledge about how much fruit and veg it contains but in my opinion, making an omelette and some steamed veg or chucking some roasted veg and chicken breast into the oven is just as easy as making a ready meal.

It then got me thinking, actually, I bet there already companies who do reference ‘x’ of your Five A Day on their products, so at least some government guidelines on this would help standardise this and stop any companies making false claims on their products and lulling the public into a false sense of security.

So, after I’d stopped spitting feathers I read the article a little more in depth and found out the following:

* The foods would have to contain at least half a portion of fruit and veg (Wow!!), this could be a mixture of different types.

* Any products would have to contain specific standards or sugar, fat and salt.

Public Health England have performed some research and found that currently only 2% of ‘green labelled’ foods would qualify. Therefore this would make it quite hard for many foods to be included in this new government idea.

If this was extended to amber foods could see a quarter of all composite foods would meet the criteria for the five-a-day logo,but worryingly this may include foods such as Chinese and Indian ready meals which I just can’t see as being healthy but people may automatically assume they are if they see the 5 A Day logo on the packaging.

It seems that no decision will be made about this until Summer 2015, and whether or not it goes ahead as a team of personal trainers , you know there is only one thing we would recommend….eat clean and lean and you can’t go wrong!

Have a read of Kate’s blog about whether 5 A Day is actually enough.