Question for my fellow health freaks....

I know being vegan doesn't automatically make you a health freak (but I am one, 99% of the time anyway)

I just can't get my head around why, when the announcement was made today that we should ditch the 5 fruit and veg a day and instead reach for 7 instead, why did most people (well ones I know anyway) think that it was an April Fool's Day joke??
http://www.livescience.com/44504-fru...mortality.html

Plus when I pointed out that it's not, people just dismissed it saying that there's no way they can eat that much in a day. Even before I was vegan I ate lots more than that anyway, I don't find it difficult. Is it just me?

Plus I can't understand how people can brush it off when they're saying that if you don't do it, you're at risk of all these nasty diseases and will shorten your life etc etc. I want to understand why people don't seem to care.

Are there any health freaks on here (or non health freaks even) that can explain it to me?

To me it's like someone telling me not to jump off a cliff or i'll die and then I go and do it anyway (well that kinda thing - that's maybe a bit extreme but you know what I'm getting at lol).

I just wanted to vent to people who might understand what I mean - I'm talking to lots of deaf ears here.

</rant>

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Daffodil

I know being vegan doesn't automatically make you a health freak (but I am one, 99% of the time anyway)

I just can't get my head around why, when the announcement was made today that we should ditch the 5 fruit and veg a day and instead reach for 7 instead, why did most people (well ones I know anyway) think that it was an April Fool's Day joke??
http://www.livescience.com/44504-fru...mortality.html

Plus when I pointed out that it's not, people just dismissed it saying that there's no way they can eat that much in a day. Even before I was vegan I ate lots more than that anyway, I don't find it difficult. Is it just me?

Plus I can't understand how people can brush it off when they're saying that if you don't do it, you're at risk of all these nasty diseases and will shorten your life etc etc. I want to understand why people don't seem to care.

Are there any health freaks on here (or non health freaks even) that can explain it to me?

To me it's like someone telling me not to jump off a cliff or i'll die and then I go and do it anyway (well that kinda thing - that's maybe a bit extreme but you know what I'm getting at lol).

I just wanted to vent to people who might understand what I mean - I'm talking to lots of deaf ears here.

</rant>

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Hi Daffodil

Well I too thought about this and saw a whole bunch of people complaining about this announcement, when in fact it is a very well documented thing that those who eat a diet which consists of 80% or more of fruits and vegetables cut their mortality rates due to cancer, heart disease, dimentia amongst others. You would think that others would at least take this information seriously I agree.. I even saw some people getting voted up on comments online for saying that our fruits and vegetables are covered in pesticides and that it would be a bad idea to each tons of that.. blaming rising cancer and disease rates basically on the fact that we do use pesticides.. which is false of course.

I've concluded after a LOT of months researching why people do not take up the vegan or plant foods based diet is because they see it as being incomplete, elitist, unhealthy, for "hippies" or "activists", too time consuming, only for those who love animals and also very expensive.. all of which is also false too. I think all we can do as vegans is promote the eating of foods which we know are vegan, however why do we even need to label it vegan food? Putting the label upon the food drives people away whereas they most probably eat vegan suitable foods all the time without even knowing it. A lot of it is to do with the lack of trust people have in general nowadays too.. but people really do need to seek the truth. Unfortunately you cant change people's minds if they are set on destroying their bodies by eating unhealthy, cancer giving foods. What we have though is the gift of knowledge on it all.. we must advocate people to put more fruits and vegetables into their diets nowadays and possibly without even labeling it vegan to do so (even though it is!).

This is my thoughts on it anyway and Ive done a ton of research into it over the past few months. We cant change the world that is stubborn sadly.. each person is taking their own risk and you can but support them in whatever they want to do.

I'm not a health freak but I too find it surprising that people can't/won't eat reasonable amounts of vegetables and fruit.

I think from talking to some non-vegans one problem is that seven (or five) "portions" sounds like an overwhelming volume of stuff when the portion sizes are actually tiny (80g for most things I think). The government etc could do more with pictures etc showing how a meal can easily include four or five portions.

Another problem for some people is that fresh fruit and veg is rather expensive compared with manufactured crap - and not even available in some poor areas - but I guess that may not apply to the ones we've been talking to.

I agree with what everyone has shared.

There is an attitude among omnivores about fruit in that it is too "high sugar" and not really necessary in the human diet. I find this laughable in the face of what these same people eat and call healthy. But there is a carb phobia out there. And fresh vegetables are viewed as too low calorie to sustain oneself and "side dishes". Meat and dairy are still seen as central to the human diet. I have known omnivores to use the argument that eskimos survive on mostly meat and prove that vegetables are not needed by pointing to the inuit diet (though as it turns out their lifespan is shorter than many). These are just a few of the reasons I have heard about why we don't need so many fruits and vegetables. They are also seen in many cultures as "feminine foods".

My diet and my husbands are like night and day, although he is beginning to try harder to improve his. I easily get eight or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day. He is lucky if he gets two, despite the efforts I have made to incorporate them into his meals. Unless i mix them in with casseroles and soups and sandwichs, he will eat around them or "save them for later". He says he can't stomach all that fiber. Sighs. His parents go heavy on dairy, meat, and potatoes and rarely include more than a tiny amount of vegetables at any given meal, so their influence on him has probably been vast. I finally managed to get him to switch from dairy milk to almond milk at least. Habits and cultural beliefs are hard to break, despite the vast studies about plant food that shed a favorable light.

I get an organic veg box delivered weekly from the farm and no longer go to supermarkets and I find my weekly food costs are cheaper as i'm not able to buy manufactured rubbish anymore and a plate of veggies and rice or equivalent, is much cheaper than say a box of linda mccartney pies/sausages etc etc.
I don't find it difficult to eat the said 7-10 portions a day and still can't get my head around why people don't make the effort rather than risk an early death (which is what we're told).

In my pre-vegan days, I almost never ate fruits or vegetables, unless chocolate raisins and fruit and nut chocolate bars count. I knew I was supposed to eat 5 day but there was no space in my stomach for fruit or vegetables when it was so full of pizza and cake.

When I first became vegan and started eating fruits and vegetables I had awful digestive problems! It took a few months before I started feeling good on natural foods. I can't believe I lived off all that junk food every day for 20 years. You don't realise how ill you are, until you start eating right.. All of a sudden you are bursting with energy and feeling amazing! I'm currently doing a 30 day raw food detox because I had a bit of an unhealthy food week thanks to Vegfest and delicious vegan cake.

I honestly don't think a lot of people raised on a modern diet, realise how good natural foods are. I sure didn't!!

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Daffodil

I just can't get my head around why, when the announcement was made today that we should ditch the 5 fruit and veg a day and instead reach for 7 instead, why did most people (well ones I know anyway) think that it was an April Fool's Day joke??

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Might be because, in omni-land, there are only 6 vegetables.

4 of those are peas and the other 2 are carrots.

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Lilystein

You don't realise how ill you are, until you start eating right.. All of a sudden you are bursting with energy and feeling amazing

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Yes!! you've hit the nail on the head there :-)

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Clueless Git

Might be because, in omni-land, there are only 6 vegetables.

4 of those are peas and the other 2 are carrots.

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Sad but true. After walking past McDonalds this afternoon and seeing it bursting at the seems (mainly with teenagers).

I agree so much with what you are all saying. Also like what Harpy said that crappy processed foods are cheaper then fresh fruit and veg, especially organic ones. And what Lilystein said on filling up on the wrong types of food.

Only in the last few years have I realized how bad the modern standard (or SAD/Standard American Diet) is. I think most people really haven't a clue on how they can eat healthily. People eat food like products instead of real food. There is so much nonsense being taught. People put their trust in the government, corporations, doctors, their parents, so much nonsense is being pushed forward and a lot of people don't do any or little research into their diet.

Literally every person in my family is obese and/or sick, when I tell them that decades of of smoking/ a lifetime of overeating on processed foods/ a huge dislike of any sort of exercise/ drinking at least a dozen cups of coffee a day to keep going/ decades of living in high stress/ taking a pill for this and a pill for that all the time, etc etc put them in the place they are today they think I'm full of it and say things like if I was right everyone would be vegan and the government would tell us to be vegan... sigh. There's just no cure for some people and believe me I've tried!