The government has recently launched the 2 fruits and 5 vegetables television ad, promoting the benefits of consuming more fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. According to their website, adults need to eat at least 2 servings of fruit and 5 serves of vegetables not only for good health but also as a preventative measure against a number of diseases.

The website also states that since most Australians already eat half that amount, it won’t be that hard to consume the recommended amount because most people are already halfway there. On our part, I think that getting the recommended servings in our diets would take some conscious effort since we rarely have fruits or vegies. Not the best diet in the world, I know, and it seems like years of consuming more meat than fruits or vegetables are catching up on us. The needle in the bathroom scale has been steadily climbing with no signs of ever going down (at least if we continue our present eating habits).

So fruits and vegies, here we come. But how to do it? Gabriel’s not a big fan of vegetables so any dish I prepare would have to feature some meat, with the vegetables acting as extenders or side dishes. I browsed through the 2 fruit and 5 vegetables site for recipes but only found a very short list. Not to worry though, there is another government campaign called Go For Your Life, which promotes exercise as well as healthy eating and their website features hundreds of recipes for anyone to try.

But wait, won’t this lifestyle change wreak havoc to our budget? Fruits and vegetables could be a tad expensive after all and since I’m not really familiar with what’s in season (and thus cheaper) or not, this may very well blow our budget. Going back to the 2 fruit and 5 vegetables site, I found a consumer information pamphlet stating just that - go for value buy buying in season goods but it didn’t feature a list of what is in season when anywhere in the site. Google saved the day when I came across the Better Health Channel and found a page featuring the in-season fruits and vegetables for the month. As a bonus, clicking on a radio button next to the fruit or vegetable you’re interested in refreshes the page and a short list of recipes featuring that fruit or vegetable is displayed. Note however that this is a Victorian site and in-season fruits and vegetables may vary between states so this list may not be accurate for other states.

Now that the research part is over, there’s still menu planning, grocery shopping and actual food preparation to do before any of those fruit or vegies grace our plates. It certainly sounds like a lot of work. I guess it’s true what they say, anything worth doing is difficult. Well, at least at the beginning.