UK remains confused over 'Five A Day'

66% believe they know how to achieve “five-a-day”, but with 25% believing orange squash to be one portion of fruit the UK is clearly a nation confused. Contrary to efforts to promote a healthy lifestyle with the ‘five a day’ message, the nation continues to be surprisingly confused and misguided on achieving it.

According to new research by Tropicana Smoothies, 66% of the UK claims to understand the ‘five a day’ mantra and know how to achieve it – however most are actually not getting five a day due to misinformed ideas. These misguided beliefs include 60% of the population believing five pieces of fruit alone and no vegetables tick the ‘five a day’ box, that orange squash, which typically contains less than a portion of fruit, qualifies as a target (25%), as do herbs (10%), while 3% believe a portion of chips counts as a vegetable.

The study also found that guilt was a recurring emotion amongst many people who say they know how to achieve ‘five a day’ but do not succeed in getting it – with many (36%) citing a busy lifestyle as to why they weren’t achieving it. Of women, 63% admit to feeling guilty about not getting enough fruit and vegetables. There is a trend of ‘quick-fix’ solutions, with one in ten admitting to a ‘fruit binge’ after eating food they consider less healthy in an attempt to ‘balance’ their diet.

In fact, women are twice as likely as men to have pangs of guilt following such a snack, and a quarter of women admit buying fruit and vegetables that are then left to go to waste – also provoking a guilty conscience. Men are not entirely removed from quick fixes though, with one in ten saying they take vitamin supplements instead of eating their recommended portions.

Leading nutritionist and member of the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF), Dr. Sarah Schenker, comments: “It’s incredible there are still so many ‘five a day’ myths in existence. This is worrying because achieving the five-a-day target is an important component of a healthy lifestyle and reducing risk of diseases such as heart disease and cancer.

“Once you know what counts reaching your five -a-day is easier than you think as there are many simple ways to incorporate fruit and vegetables into your diet such as drinking fruit based smoothies or throwing a handful of dried fruit on your breakfast cereal.”

Interestingly, 20% of men don’t care about the ‘five a day’ mantra and eat what they like anyway and 13.5% of the UK thinks ‘five a day’ is an unrealistic goal.

Todd Katz, Tropicana Smoothies ‘master-blender’, adds: “We initiated this research to understand the nation’s perception of ‘five a day’ and how it applies to daily consumption habits, particularly in relation to how smoothies are being used to achieve this goal. In addition to juice, which provides vitamin C, folic acid, and minerals such as potassium, Tropicana Smoothies contain crushed fruit which has the added benefit of dietary fibre. For this reason they can count as two of your daily portion.

“We were quite surprised to learn that ‘five a day’ is still widely misunderstood, despite the term being commonly known, so this research reveals an opportunity to continue educating the nation on ways to achieve this goal, now that we better understand the misconceptions.”

Tropicana Smoothies are available in a range of five fruity flavours and contain no added water or sugar – only that naturally occurring in fruit. They count as two towards the government’s recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Each flavour is available in 1 litre and 250ml bottles, priced at £2.99 and £1.79 respectively and are available at all major retailers.

For more information visit Tropicana.co.uk.