Tag: fruit and vegetables

Healthy Heart Tip: Back to Basics

Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by the Health Promotion and Education Team at Heart Research UK

Healthy Heart Tip: Back to Basics

12th of July is National Simplicity Day in the UK, and in honour of the day dedicated to simple living, this healthy tip takes heart health back to the basics.

Our health, the food we eat and the exercise we do (or don’t do) are hot topics and it can feel overwhelming and far from simple.

In this week’s healthy tip, we are stripping back the noise and detailing a few easy things we can all start doing from today for a healthy heart.

Mediterranean diet

This way of eating emphasises eating lots of plant-based foods and healthy fats and can reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Eat lots of fruit and vegetables, wholegrains (brown rice, wholemeal bread etc), nuts and seeds and extra virgin olive oil. Eat moderate amounts of fish (especially omega-3 rich fish like salmon) and dairy products. Eat little meat (opt for lean chicken and turkey), sweets, sugary drinks, and processed foods.

30 minutes of exercise

Exercise for 30 minutes at least five days a week. Adults should be active for 150 minutes a week and you can break this up however you like.

Start small if you need to. If you don’t currently have an exercise routine, a brisk walk for 30 minutes a day, five days a week will significantly impact your heart health for the better.

Alcohol & smoking

If you smoke, seek support and work with a professional to help you stop. There is support available so be sure to ask for help. Drinking small amounts of alcohol is unlikely to cause serious consequences alongside a healthy lifestyle, but heavy drinking is a big risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

The NHS recommends drinking no more than 14 units of alcohol a week spread over three or more days, but also state that there is no completely safe level of drinking so skip the alcohol where possible.

For more tips on how to stay healthy, sign up for weekly healthy tips at:

www.heartresearch.org.uk/health-tips.

Healthy Heart Tip: The Power of Gardening

Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by the Health Promotion and Education Team at Heart Research UK

Healthy Heart Tip: The Power of Gardening

It is National Gardening Day on 14th April in the UK and as the weather starts to (slowly!) warm up, it is a great time to get outside. Gardening is associated with many health benefits including improved physical, mental and social wellbeing.

Mowing the lawn, digging, weeding and other gardening tasks can help us stay active and hit our weekly exercise goal and simply spending more time outdoors has been shown to improve sleep. If you don’t have a garden, or outdoor space, you can still reap many of the benefits by planting in pots on windowsills or joining a local gardening group near you.

Read on for our top tips to get started and ideas of what to grow: 

Getting started 

Whether you are growing indoors or outdoors, a thriving plant starts with good soil. The surest way to make sure your plants get off to a good start is to buy a bag of compost and use this to start your seedlings; once they are well-established you can re-plant them into regular soil in your garden.

To save money on buying little pots, you can start your seedlings in clean yoghurt pots or any other containers you can save from your kitchen, just poke something sharp through the bottom to allow for some drainage. 

Grow heart-healthy herbs 

Eating too much salt can contribute to increased blood pressure, using herbs in cooking is a great way to add flavour without adding salt. Herbs are one of the easiest things to grow and great for beginners to try. They are a great choice for indoor growing as they do well in pots on a sunny windowsill.

If you’re planting them outdoors, choose the sunniest spot you can find. Chives, mint, basil, parsley, and thyme are just a few that are easy to care for. You can either grow from seeds or buy the small plants from the supermarket and re-pot them. 

Involve the whole family 

Gardening is a hobby for all ages, and it’s a nice activity to do with children. Children love to see flowers grow and growing vegetables together can be a great way to encourage them to try them, which is especially helpful if you have a picky eater.

It is also a great way to introduce a little responsibility in the form of caring for something else, let children choose what flowers and vegetables they want to grow and watch the sense of joy they get from seeing the fruits of their labour. 

To help keep your heart healthy, why not try out some of our healthy recipes from our website: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-recipes-2/.

Hydration for a Healthy Heart

Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by the Health Promotion and Education Team at Heart Research UK

Healthy Heart Tip: Hydration for a Healthy Heart

Nutrition and Hydration Week is an annual event that aims to educate and celebrate improvements in the provision of nutrition and hydration.

When thinking about heart health, we often think about nutrition and the impact this can have, but we can forget to consider how inadequate hydration levels can negatively impact our cardiac health.

This week’s Healthy Tip is all about hydration, and how it’s an essential component to our health and optimal functioning of our cardiovascular system.

Why is hydration important?

Water accounts for about 60% of our body weight, and every single cell in our body needs to be properly hydrated to work well.

Water performs many roles in the body, such as regulating body temperature through sweating, lubricating joints, and removing waste products via bowel movements and urination. If we don’t drink enough fluids the amount of blood circulating in our body decreases. When this happens the heart must beat faster and our blood pressure may be affected, which can increase our risk of a cardiac event.

Signs of dehydration

Dehydration occurs when we lose more fluids (through urination and sweating) than we replace with the fluids from the food and drinks we consume.

Symptoms of moderate dehydration include not urinating much throughout the day, dark yellow urine, muscle cramps, thirst and a dry mouth. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms often, it’s a good idea to increase your fluid intake.

Ways to drink more

Drinking water is the easiest and cheapest way to ensure you stay properly hydrated, but there are other drinks that count towards your liquid intake such as herbal teas, sugar-free juice and low-fat milk.

The NHS recommends drinking 6 to 8 cups or glasses of fluids every day, which is about 1.5 to 2 litres.

Fruits and vegetables also contain water, so increasing the amount you consume can improve your hydration levels. Some great options include cucumber, tomatoes, apples, watermelon and peaches.

For more tips on how to stay healthy, sign up for our weekly healthy tips at 

www.heartresearch.org.uk/healthy-tips.

Dobbies helps Edinburgh residents grow their own

Free sustainable Grow How session in its Edinburgh store 

 Looking for a cost-effective way to grow your own fruit and vegetables? Dobbies, the UK’s leading garden centre, is hosting a free Grow How session in its Edinburgh store to help people prepare for bumper crops. 

Taking place on Saturday 4 March at 10:30am, this interactive session has been carefully designed for gardeners  of all skill levels, from beginners to experts. Dobbies’ horticultural experts will demonstrate the best way of growing bumper crops, focusing on tomatoes and hearty vegetables.  

Participants in Edinburgh will learn how to identify and select the appropriate plant variety, as well as how to  prepare them for sowing. They’ll also learn about the best time of year to plant fruit and vegetables, the correct  tools to use, and how to nurture the plants from seedlings right the way through to the harvest. 

Sarah Murray, Dobbies’ Partnership and Events Manager, said: “At Dobbies we are always looking for ways to  inspire people to get into gardening.

“In addition to being beneficial for the environment, growing your own has  been shown to improve physical wellbeing and mental health – and it’s a fantastic way to watch your food spend.

“Customers in Edinburgh are encouraged to stop by and attend this free workshop where they’ll learn how to plant  and harvest delicious fresh produce.” 

For more information about how to take part in Dobbies’ Grow How session, visit Grow How | Dobbies Garden  Centres.

Healthy Heart Tip: Plant-Based Diets for Heart Health

Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by the Health Promotion and Education Team at Heart Research UK

Healthy Heart Tip: Plant Based Diets for Heart Health

This January many people will be challenging themselves to go plant-based in support of Veganuary, a month-long campaign aimed at encouraging people to try out a vegan diet.

A vegan diet consists of only food coming from plants and eliminates any animal-based foods such as milk, eggs, meat, and cheese. Adopting a more plant-based diet comes with many health benefits.

Specifically in relation to heart health, vegan diets tend to be higher in fibre and lower in saturated fat, which has a positive impact on cholesterol levels.

Here we outline some ways you can eat more plant-based every day, not just January:

Include fruits and vegetables at breakfast

Making sure we consistently get our minimum of five fruits and vegetables every day can be quite difficult if we don’t consume at least one portion with every meal. Start the day off right by including a portion at breakfast.

This could look like adding mushrooms to your scrambled eggs or including a banana alongside your porridge. Just make a conscious effort to tick off one of your five a day at breakfast.

Plan snacks around plants

Regardless of what diet you follow, everyone can benefit from eating more plants. A great way to do this is to plan your snacks around fruits and vegetables.

Carrot, cucumber, pepper, sugar snap peas and edamame beans make great vegetable snacks; pair them with some hummus or a homemade low-fat yoghurt and mint dip.

Any fruit works well as a snack and most pair nicely with a few teaspoons of almond or peanut butter to make a more substantial snack.

Eat plant-based, protein-rich foods

If the thought of a bean chilli or lentil spaghetti bolognese doesn’t appeal to you, simply make your usual ones but try adding in a tin of beans or lentils while its cooking. They will add more fibre to your meal, helping you stay full for longer, and reduce the amount of saturated fat you are consuming (providing you eat your usual portion size).

An added bonus is beans and lentils are much cheaper than buying meat, so you can bulk up your meals and make them go further at a fraction of the cost.

For more tips on how to stay healthy, sign up for our weekly healthy tips at:  www.heartresearch.org.uk/healthy-tips

To help keep your heart healthy, why not try out some of our Healthy Heart recipes from our website: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-recipes-2/.

Or have a look through our Healthy Heart cookbook filled with recipes from top chefs, celebrities and food bloggers:

https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-cookbook/.

Mushroom Alchemy in Granton

Do you like mushrooms? Would you like to grow-your-own? Come along to Rhyze Mushrooms Alchemy Workshop to learn to grow mushrooms on household waste.

Wednesday 12th October 3pm – 6pm at Granton Community Gardeners

Book your place by contacting Jules on 07517 109 319 or julesryan@pchp.org.uk

It’s Good to Grow: Morrisons reconnects children with nature

– It’s Good To Grow scheme will see in-store and online spending rewarded by giving gardening equipment and seeds to UK schoolchildren –

– Move to encourage children to eat fruit and vegetables as 70 per cent are more likely to eat produce that they have grown themselves –

Morrisons has launched ‘It’s Good To Grow’, a campaign in all of its stores that will donate gardening equipment to schoolchildren across the UK in the hope of educating kids about where their food comes from.

The scheme will see customers gain one ‘It’s Good to Grow’ token in their My Morrisons account via the app and website for every £10 that is spent in store or online, which can then be donated to any school to redeem equipment such as gardening tools, composting bins and seeds to get growing. 

The National Food Strategy, published earlier this year, outlined the need for the UK to improve dietary health whilst protecting the environment, warning that a failure to do so could lead to obesity costing the NHS £15 billion by 2035.

Morrisons hopes the initiative will help build a connection between kids and healthy food by making school children more aware of the journey of food from field to fork.

New research by YouGov on behalf of Morrisons has found that some children aged six to 15 do not have a good understanding of how fruits and vegetables are grown.

For example, only 34 per cent correctly identified how asparagus is grown, with 32 per cent stating that asparagus is grown underground and 21 per cent saying they don’t know how it is grown. This highlights a need to show kids how food is grown to help them eat better now and in the future.

Being Britain’s biggest foodmaker, Morrisons is empowering children to connect with the natural world for them to better understand what they are putting into their bodies. Giving children the tools and knowledge needed can help develop better dietary habits – with research finding that out of 1,115 children surveyed aged six to 15, 70 per cent are more likely to eat produce that they have grown and cared for themselves.

Over half (56 per cent) of the children aged six to 10 in the UK are not currently eating their recommended amount of fruit and vegetables each day. The Morrisons scheme aims to build a closer relationship between children and fruit and vegetables so they can see that it can be easy and inexpensive to grow their own produce once they have the necessary skills.

Rachel Eyre, Chief Customer & Marketing Officer at Morrisons, said: “We’re really proud of the work that we do for British food and with British farmers. It’s great to be able to launch a campaign that will give our youngest customers the knowledge and equipment to gain a better understanding about where food comes from and how to grow it.

“We want children to engage with nature as it will help them to start eating more healthily now and in the future, because they are more likely to eat fruit and vegetables when they understand them or have grown them themselves.”

‘It’s Good To Grow’ aims to transform 14,000 schools in Britain into Morrisons Growing Schools by giving children additional educational resources to demonstrate the importance of improving their health, whilst making use of their environment.

This is the latest initiative introduced by Morrisons that aims to encourage a sustainable future and follows wider business commitments such as pledging to be completely supplied by net zero emission British farms by 2030 and committing to the Peas Please initiative, run by the Food Foundation, to encourage customers to eat more vegetables.

Download the My Morrisons app via the App Store and Google Play to start earning ‘It’s Good to Grow’ tokens that can be donated to schools for them to redeem gardening equipment. 

For more information visit: https://www.itsgoodtogrow.co.uk .

Nutritional support for young children in Scotland

Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme launched

A scheme to provide children in eligible pre-school settings with milk and a portion of fruit or vegetables launched yesterday (1 August). The Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme replaces the UK Nursery Milk Scheme, making more healthy produce available for more children.

All pre-schoolers who spend two hours or more a day in eligible childcare settings registered with the scheme will be entitled to a serving of fresh milk.

Unlike the UK scheme, a piece of fruit or portion of vegetables will also be offered and children who cannot drink cow’s milk for medical, ethical or religious reasons will be offered a specified non-dairy alternative.

More than 3,000 childcare settings and over 116,000 children are already signed up to the new scheme and it is anticipated that more will register to benefit in year one. The Scottish Government is expected to provide around £9 million to £12 million funding to local authorities, depending on uptake, to administer the scheme in the first year.

Eligible settings who register will receive up-front payments via their local authority.

Children’s Minister Clare Haughey said: “We know that diet impacts on children’s health and their ability to learn. This scheme not only provides eligible pre-school children in Scotland with access to excellent sources of nutrition but we hope it will set up healthy eating habits for life.

“With this expanded and improved offer, the Scottish Government has gone further than the UK scheme. Working in partnership with COSLA and other key partners, we are investing in children’s outcomes, providing increased money up-front, and offering a wider range of healthy produce while supporting our vital Scottish food and drink sector.”

COSLA Children and Young People Spokesperson Councillor Stephen McCabe said: “The provision of milk and healthy snacks to children is an important part of ensuring that they can get the best from their learning and contributes to their overall health and wellbeing.

“The scheme will provide for children at a crucial stage in their development and we have worked in partnership to ensure that as many children as possible benefit.”

Eat green in 2018: Scots urged to eat more fruit and veg

January will see the revamp of the ‘Eat Better Feel Better’ website, which offers practical advice with the aim of increasing fruit and veg consumption, and cutting unhealthy snacking and sugary drink consumption in children. The site has tips and tools for families to help them make simple, quick and cheap changes to how they shop, cook and eat. Continue reading Eat green in 2018: Scots urged to eat more fruit and veg