Switch up your meals
Scratch-cooking more dinners? Look for opportunities to sneak in extra veggies. Top shepherd’s pie with mashed cauliflower or parsnips instead of potato, wilt a handful of spinach into curries and soups, or bulk out stews with cubes of butternut squash.
Snack smarter
If you usually tuck into biscuits for elevenses, or a packet of crisps on your way home, try munching on fruit and veg instead. Bananas and apples are easy to eat on-the-go, and homemade veggie crisps or sliced peppers with houmous are good for an afternoon pick-me-up.
Fill your freezer
Frozen fruit and veg are just as healthy as fresh, and they’re often cheaper, too. Use frozen berries in overnight oats or bakes, and add handfuls of frozen veg to stir-fries, soups and stews.
Make every meal count
Try pledging that every meal you eat throughout the day will include at least one portion of fruit or veg. Try stirring berries into your morning porridge, swapping your lunchtime jacket for a baked sweet potato, serving your Bolognese with courgetti rather than spaghetti, and choosing baked fruit for dessert.
Drink it up
You can count one 150ml serving of fruit or vegetable juice (unsweetened, 100 per cent juice), or one smoothie towards your 5-a-day. If you have more than one juice or smoothie in a day, it will still only count as one of your 5-a-day. This is because once they become part of a smoothie, the experience of eating them changes. Research shows that liquids don’t promote the same feeling of fullness as solid foods do.