Jamie Oliver has described the five-a-day message as a lie, arguing that the real health benefits of fruit and vegetables begin at seven, eight or even eleven portions a day.
Why Jamie Oliver is right about the five-a-day fruit and veg 'lie'
Jamie Oliver has described the five-a-day message as a lie, arguing that the real health benefits of fruit and vegetables begin at seven, eight or even eleven portions a day.
Researcher Catherine Norton says he is right that more is better, but wrong to imply the original campaign was dishonest. Five was never presented as the optimal number. It was chosen more than twenty years ago as a target people might actually reach, roughly double what most were eating at the time.
The evidence does show a dose response: health benefits keep accruing well beyond five servings, with the strongest associations around ten a day for cardiovascular disease and premature death.
The practical takeaway is not to abandon five-a-day but to treat it as a floor rather than a ceiling, and to widen what counts, since legumes, herbs and frozen vegetables all contribute.
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