Does anyone actually eat their recommended daily nutrion?

[fictiveLaark]

My doctor always reminds me to do this but doing such a thing seems like it would take an enormous amount of money, especially since I decided to get out of my mom's house and rent an apartment. Right now my daily diet is typically this, Oatmeal in the morning, a bowl of salad(lettuce, tomato, and bell pepper) for lunch, and a potato for dinner, and in between I get quite a bit of coffee, some times chocolate milk.

[SlyReaper]

Nope, in fact I think it has been more than a week since I last consumed a fresh piece of fruit or veg.

I'm going to die of scurvy, aren't I.

[AngrySquirrel]

I tend to forget to eat. Or I am too lazy to drag my butt to the store and back again while it's still open.

But I take vitamin pills! And iron, and C-vitamin and lots of meds cause doc said I had to.

[TheKrikkitWars]

Nope, I tend to live predominently on red meat, root veg and baked goods, with a smattering of cheese, onion, mushroom and tomatos.

I do tend to drink a lot of fruit juice though, in the region of 2-3 litres a day.

[Sokh]

I think the recommended amount is a little unrealistic. I mean how many people plan out their days food in advance, making sure they have enough of every vitamin and then stick to it without snacking on anything more? I know there's some health conscience people that do that but the vast majority eat as and when. In my humble opinion, the DRA is just there to let give you a rough guide to how much of what you should be eating. As long as you get some meat and veg in your diet I doubt you'll run into any trouble.

Although I should be the last person to take advice from, I've been so lazy the last couple weeks. Have no real food in the house and I've been living off takeaways and sandwiches from the newsagents D:

[podbaydoor]

I used to get decent portions of veg and fruits back when I was on a meal plan at college and had access to the dining halls. Like, two years ago. Then I moved out and my diet cycle went according to whether my boyfriend or best friend were willing to feed me. Now I have no boyfriend and my best friend is +2 hours away, and I'm down to canned food and frozen dinners. I snack on carrots, though.

[Aleril]

I think the recommended amount is a little unrealistic. I mean how many people plan out their days food in advance, making sure they have enough of every vitamin and then stick to it without snacking on anything more? I know there's some health conscience people that do that but the vast majority eat as and when.

I imagine someone who lives in a house with post-it notes on everything telling him/her when to eat what things what day. They would also have an enormous graph telling the nutritional facts of all of the fast food restaurants around their house down to each exact percentage. An analog clock would hang above the kitchen with more notes that matches up with the bodies natural cycle saying when to eat the most and least. Their wallet would probably contain their debt card, about 20 dollars in cash, their medical card and a whole section dedicated to just nutritional facts, you know, just in case.

The sad thing is, someone like this probably exists. In all of their OCD glory.

[lanicita]

My doctor always reminds me to do this but doing such a thing seems like it would take an enormous amount of money, especially since I decided to get out of my mom's house and rent an apartment. Right now my daily diet is typically this, Oatmeal in the morning, a bowl of salad(lettuce, tomato, and bell pepper) for lunch, and a potato for dinner, and in between I get quite a bit of coffee, some times chocolate milk.

That's really not enough for you to live on. That's probably only 500 calories or so, and you need 800 per day just to sustain your organs. Keep up that diet and you're looking at serious health problems. I expect you need a lot more fat and protein in your diet as basically everything you said is just carbs, so maybe you could add some cheese to your salad and beans to your potato or something? Other foods you could easily add include rice, bread, fruit, eggs, yogurt, granola bars, etc. Just find a way to get more because that's not healthy at all.

[Fat Zombie]

I used to get decent portions of veg and fruits back when I was on a meal plan at college and had access to the dining halls. Like, two years ago. Then I moved out and my diet cycle went according to whether my boyfriend or best friend were willing to feed me. Now I have no boyfriend and my best friend is +2 hours away, and I'm down to canned food and frozen dinners. I snack on carrots, though.

...Learn to cook, surely? It's not that hard to do, just get yourself a basic cookbook and start experimenting. You can do better than frozen meals, and you know what goes into the meal.

Don't believe people who say that homecooking is healthier than take-aways and frozen meals, though. That's only if you cook healthy food, and not, say, fry up bacon with mince. (It was delicious, but still)

[Thesh]

I don't like to shop a lot, so most of my food comes dried, frozen, or canned. For the first week after I go shopping I may have an array of fresh foods, but then it is down to a few items and I tend to eat the same thing over and over and probably don't get all the vitamins and minerals I need.

[The Scyphozoa]

Spoiler:

My daily diet usually consists of a large bowl of Cheerios and a banana, two Nutri-grain bars and a V8, a turkey sandwich with mayonnaise and muenster cheese on whole wheat, freaking tons of Sun Chips, and varying dinner dishes, which may include chili (with lots of stuff in it, very healthy); this thing with rice and tomato sauce and onions and green pepper and celery and zucchini and corn, kind of like more ricey, less beany, more tomato saucy chili; grilled chicken w/ grilled vegetables; mac & cheese with peas and chunks of ham thrown in; sausage; and, soon, I'll be eating pizza again (home-made, with Boboli crust, green pepper, zucchini, tomato sauce, onions, and cheese). I'll also be eating Wheat Thins instead of Sun Chips again, which means my freaking tons of snack foods will increase in amount and be upgraded to fricking or even fucking tons (all of which are more than frigging, which is still an awesome word).

tl;dr My breakfasts are super healthy, lunches are meh, snacks are meh with probably a great deal of calories (and a lot of snacking), and dinners can range from very filler-ish food to fucking healthy as shit.

[vector]

Breakfast: Egg, plain toast, apple, glass of milk
Lunch: Depends; sometimes vegetable sandwich w/tofu, sometimes PB&J (usually not, though), sometimes leftovers
Snack: Fruit smoothie (yoghurt + lots of berries)
Dinner: Depends; usually some sort of vegetable soup, or sandwich, or brown rice + lentils + veggies and so on.

Yup. My mom still yells at me to improve my diet

[The Scyphozoa]

Hey, thought: there's a Food forum. A forum for food. A forum for threads about food. This is a thread about food.

[SecondTalon]

It's also about Fitness, so it could be in Fit Club.

ARGH CHOICES!

Running this one by MJ to see what he thinks

[Nath]

The recommendations are pretty silly. This is to be expected when you have a single set of recommendations for a diverse group of people.

I eat reasonably well most of the time, but my diet looks nothing at all like any government recommendation I've seen. I get about 1g of protein per lb of my bodyweight; this requires eating lots of eggs and meat and dairy. The meat is often frozen chicken thighs or breasts, or sometimes beef or pork. I eat this with a big pile of frozen vegetables (...formerly frozen vegetables). I often follow this up with cottage cheese and fruit. Additional fats come from nuts, and additional carbs come from oatmeal and whole wheat bread. So on days that I cook dinner, I think I'm pretty much on target.

Of course, sometimes I just pick up some teriyaki or a burger, especially for lunch. This is less healthy.

[caje]

Yes, usually much more. My diet consists of meat, veggies and some fruit. No rice, wheat or potatoes which gets rid of empty calories. I only supplement with Omega 3 (if my budget goes south and I have to buy non grass-fed beef) and Vitamin D.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

It's also about Fitness, so it could be in Fit Club.

ARGH CHOICES!

Running this one by MJ to see what he thinks

OW MY FOOT!

I think it's good in Food, and I'll mention it somewhere noticeable in FC.

[PAstrychef]

I like vegetables. I like to cook them and eat them. Alas, my roommates will only eat limited types of vegetables, so these days I cook mostly broccoli or green beans or make a very plain salad. It's hard for me to cook just enough for me to eat before it spoils. When I lived with my mom we ate lots and lots of vegetables. I miss them.
I do manage to limit my snack-food consumption quite well.

[Bakemaster]

I've found that one great way to get people to expand the vegetables they'll eat is to introduce them to the grilled forms of vegetables they claim not to like, otherwise. Oil, S&P, and a bit of char goes a long way to bring out the sugars and make veggies taste more interesting. People will be all, "Grilled carrots? Madness!" until they are shown that hey, you can indeed caramelize a vegetable without any added sweetener, and it tastes good.

[podbaydoor]

It's hard for me to cook just enough for me to eat before it spoils.

I think this is my main problem, and the biggest obstacle to my learning to cook / cooking more. Today I had to throw out a bunch of lovely cantaloupe because it had gone moldy even though I'd been doing my best to eat it every day.

[Mighty Jalapeno]

I've discovered that my vegetable intake increases DRAMATICALLY when I have forced myself to become hungry, which is something that about 300,000,000+ people in North America are not used to. It is incredibly easy to eat as much as you want of almost anything you want, so the concept of being so hungry that you have to turn to less palatable alternatives is quite alien. Trust me, I know... it was alien to me until about three months ago. Right now, I am on a fairly strict diet, powered only by my own willpower, and for once it seems to be enough since I'm seeing results. But one of the interesting results was whatever vegetables get made for dinner, either by me or my wife, I will consume. Gladly. And then have more. I have tried several forms of fruit I have hated until now, simply because of the gnawing hunger in my stomach and my refusal to eat junk food. I didn't even hesitate to try peach cobbler the other night, after almost three decades of hating peaches. In the past month I've eaten beets and cowboy pickles and raw cauliflower and avocado and a dozen other things you could not PAY me to eat a year ago, when the cupboards were stocked with barbecue peanuts and crackers and assorted cheeses. I figure right now I'm way the hell over my RDI for most vitamins and minerals.

[LMeire]

Decent solution for the lazy:

Take a few slices of pepperoni, some sour dough, a fresh tomato, a fresh potato, some parmesian cheese, your choice of spices for flavor, stick it all in the blender and heat it up and WALA!! not-so-Italian Soup for bachelors!

[Роберт]

I've found that one great way to get people to expand the vegetables they'll eat is to introduce them to the grilled forms of vegetables they claim not to like, otherwise. Oil, S&P, and a bit of char goes a long way to bring out the sugars and make veggies taste more interesting. People will be all, "Grilled carrots? Madness!" until they are shown that hey, you can indeed caramelize a vegetable without any added sweetener, and it tastes good.

Yes! Skewer some zucchini and yellow squash slices and onion, season, grill, and enjoy! Or sauté, that's good too.

I think a big problem people have with vegetables is they only got canned or frozen then boiled growing up... with those associations, of course they're gross.

[Bakemaster]

Yeah, I can't think of too many canned vegetables I would touch with a ten-foot pole. Water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, beans...?

[Mighty Jalapeno]

Grilled asparagus = a hit in my family for EVERYONE. A little bit of oil and lemon juice, no salt or pepper. Win.

[Thesh]

Yeah, I can't think of too many canned vegetables I would touch with a ten-foot pole. Water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, beans...?

I prefer canned green beans over fresh green beans (they don't taste anything alike, which is a good thing to me). Other vegetables such as corn are edible canned, but not nearly as good as fresh or even frozen. Other than that, black olives? I can't really think of much else.

[Dark567]

It completely depends. I eat out a lot(not uncommon for 12-15 times a week) and restaurants are fairly good at making sure there are veggies and fruit in every meal. When I eat at home I mostly just eat sandwiches usually with some tomatoes and spinach. So I probably get enough of fruits and veggies in the DRI. The problem is I eat way past the DRI in the carbs, meat and dairy categories. :-/

[Bakemaster]

Other than that, black olives?

Nope. Fruit.

[charolastra]

I do actually plan out my days and proportions a week in advance. It saves money, time, and effort so I tend to hit my daily nutrition. Otherwise I'm going to do my weekly trip to the grocery store (it's a bit of a walk), say fuck it, and buy frozen burritos.

But I also am really frugal and trying to lose about 80 pounds, so I have a serious drive to track it all. I use Sparkpeople to track my food and exercise. Not completely accurate, but it works for me.

[bigglesworth]

Yeah, I can't think of too many canned vegetables I would touch with a ten-foot pole. Water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, beans...?

Canned tomatoes are good. (INB4 FRUIT)

[Obby]

I probably come close on most days. For breakfast I usually have some kind of egg (always topped with ketchup, no matter how the egg is cooked) and some toast or a bagel with either margarine or cream cheese, and either orange juice or 1% milk to drink (usually OJ). For lunch I will usually get a few pieces of fruit (a couple of apples and a banana, or an orange and a banana, or some peaches with a mango), or occasionally get some kind of sub. Ham, roast beef, turkey, tuna or chicken salad... Again, I'm not picky because it all tastes good. Loaded with lettuce, tomato and peppers.

Dinner appetizer is almost always a garden salad. Dinner is usually some kind of meat (usually chicken or ground turkey, but sometimes it will be pork and occasionally beef) with a side of vegetables, sauteed green beans usually, sometimes peas and/or carrots and/or corn, and occasionally some more exotic veggies like artichokes (are they even a vegetable?).

That's a "typical" day's food for me and my girlfriend. Though, we also like to get creative when we cook, so we'll frequently try to make foods from other cultures and countries. Asian, middle eastern, hispanic, german, french... We vary what we eat a lot.

[The Utilitarian]

Much like creating carbon nano-tubes, healthy eating for me is all about creating the appropreate conditions ahead of time so that the desired nutriton happens naturally of its own volition.

In theory anyways. My girlfriend and Iessentially just try to reduce as much fat and sodium out of the products that we buy so that we can prepare meals without worrying too much. Also, recently we've learned to prepare garlic broccoli and it's fantastic. Finally a way to enjoy broccoli without smothering it in cheese, which kinda defeats some purpose o_O

[dubsola]

I eat broccoli when it's accompanied by delicious meat, which makes me like it. I know that it helps me absorb the iron from the meat, so they go well together. I don't eat very much meat these days, probably only once or twice a week, I'll have fish a few times a week, and that's it. I get a box of fruit and vegetables delivered weekly, and in working my way through it I think I'd get pretty close to what most scientists would call a healthy diet.

In general, I eat food, not too much, mostly plants..

[Enuja]

My spouse eats (microwaved) frozen chicken breast, (boiled) whole wheat pasta, (microwaved) frozen spinach, tomato sauce, milk and a whole grain cereal (either Cheerios or Frosted Mini Wheats). Believe it or not, he gets lots of nutrients that way. I don't do as well, esp. at moments (like right now) when I don't have a lot of fresh vegetables in the fridge.

podbaydoor, you have to learn how to cook for yourself, and how much veg to buy for yourself, (and buying fresh veg means that some of it will, sometimes, go bad) but it is possible to cook small amounts, just for yourself. It took me a few years to learn how to do it, but it is possible.

[Enid]

Most days I do pretty well just because I like a lot of variety in my diet, and my taste in food tends towards healthy things. However, I am ludicrously bad at remembering to eat on days when I don't have meal breaks built into my schedule, so I fairly frequently have days like one earlier this week when I realized I had been up 20 hours and all I had eaten was a bagel and a granola bar. This is something I've become increasingly aware of and I am trying to have a better relationship with food. Scheduling eating seems to be necessary for me.

Oh man! I thought for years and years that I hated green beans because all my mom served were the canned ones. Turns out that when they are fresh, or even some brands of frozen, I love the things. Of course, I love nearly everything green. My favorite food as a child was lima beans.

[fullmoonmidget]

I think it is nigh unto impossible to get the recommended daily amount without massively exceeding your daily calories. However, disregarding the 10 servings of whole grain, it's fairly easy to get at least 2/3 that. Try buying some dried beans, and eating that with your potato. Or swap your potato for rice and have beans and rice. Add some carrots(not baby. those are extremely expensive) and onions(pretty cheap, last a longggg time)to your salad, and satee some of the leftovers for dinner. Add a scoop of peanut butter to your oatmeal (natural. Its about the same, depending on where you go, and is all protein). Add some orange juice to your breakfast (if your worried about cost, it really doesn't matter if it's concentrate) and you've got pretty much what you need. You could toss in some dairy as well, in a multitude of ways. Cottage cheese is good, but don't waste your money on flavored yogurt.

Buy in bulk and you're only spending a few extra bucks. In the long run, it's so much cheaper than starving yourself.