Farm to Fork - A Balanced and Healthy Diet

Ever wondered why we call some fruits vegetables? And why we never eat vegetables as fruit? The Turning Tides Project went to Tesco to find out why.  

Tesco run an educational day called 'Farm to Fork' to teach people in the community about eating a balanced and healthy diet.

The first session that The Turning Tides Project attended was to learn about what good stuff is actually inside fruit and vegetables and to learn about eating the right portion sizes. We were introduced to John and Andrew at Tesco, to start they showed us the ‘Eat Well Chart’ to show what kinds of foods contained which vitamins: carrots and lettuce are high in Vitamin A, eggs, fish and meat have a lot of Vitamin B, oranges and peppers are high in Vitamin C amongst a whole host of others, the list was huge.

John then asked about our favourite meals so we could break down the ingredients - from Burger and chips to Spaghetti Bolognese and Macaroni Cheese, we were told that what makes some foods healthier and how much the way a food is prepared can affect how healthy the food is. For instance, you could have a healthy burger and chips if the burger was grilled and not fried with oil, as well as the chips if they were large chunky chips as they have more goodness inside them.

We then went on to learn about the importance of having 5-a-day. It ensures you get a balanced diet and that all of the right vitamins are consumed by eating different fruits and vegetables.

Our final task was to do a ‘Food Hunt’ where we were tasked to search the fruit and veg section and write down what we thought were fruits and vegetables and colour co-ordinate them.
Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? It’s a fruit!
Is a pepper a fruit or a vegetable? It’s also a fruit!

We found there were many Red and Green fruits and veg but found that there are not many fruits or vegetables that are purple (much to our disappointment) but we manage to count 5 in the end: Aubergine, Beetroot, Plums, Blueberries and Red Cabbage (definitely purple).

A big thank you to John and Andrew at Tesco for having us. If you’d like to find out more information healthy eating and sessions, head over to our Healthy Living section of our website.

Written by Jake Hooper, Published by Dom Palfreman