How much vegetables is enough?

As part of the new Grow Well SG initiative, parents of P1-P3 kids were asked to complete a "child lifestyle questionnaire" so that the kids could receive personalised lifestyle advice during school health screenings.

Last Friday, Yu had his health screening in school. His key takeaways were (1) Mama told the doctor he didn't eat enough vege, and (2) he should eat more vege.

On school days, his lunch is just carbs and proteins; why add vege to lengthen lunch time and eat into study/play time plus get too close to dinner time? His school-day dinner gives him one serving of vege and one serving of fruits. 

On weekends, I don't cut fruits but he gets one serving of vege in our Saturday porridge. When we eat out, he may get some vege but the bits in ban mian? It's definitely not one serving. 

Since HPB says that we should have two servings of vege and two servings of fruits a day, he's certainly falling way short. And I pretty much told him that when he came back to complain that I bao toh-ed him.

Well, I could have added vege in lunch and lengthened lunch time (plus bear with complaints) but our dinner starts at 5.30 pm. I need to put some time between lunch and dinner or the kids couldn't eat.

I can't change lunch time coz school ends at 1.30 pm and they have to bus home. It's usually 2.45pm before they start lunch and 3.00 pm by the time they're done. That gives only 2.5h before dinner. That's why my lunches are always small and heavy on proteins rather than carbs, e.g. beef and egg burger, chicken leg with toast.

I also can't change dinner time coz bedtime is 8 pm and they can take an hour for dinner 🤦‍♀️  More for Yang if the food isn't to his liking. Then it's time to poop and shower, and relax a bit with TED-Ed (latest fancy) before calling it a day.

By the way, HPB is also the one who says kids aged 6-13 years need 9-11 hours of sleep a day. Since they now wake at 6.20 am on school days, they should sleep by 9 pm. And since they don't drop off like sleeping beauty, we have to start bedtime routine early. AND since HPD also says （什么都是你讲的……）that the last meal should be consumed three hours before bed, by right must finish dinner by 6 pm - possible only on spaghetti day or curry day. 

Simple maths will tell anyone that it's impossible to sleep well and eat well at the same time. (And maintain good mental health for this Mama whose kids don't like vege.)

Actually around the time of completing the questionnaire for Yu in ~ March, I also looked around for info on vege servings. What I found about what constitutes one serving of vege was baffling:

1. A quarter of a 25cm plate of cooked leafy vegetables such as stir-fried kang kong
2. 150g of raw leafy vegetables like kai lan
3. 100g of raw non-leafy vegetables like broccoli
4. ¾ mug (250 ml) of cooked leafy vegetables like spinach
5. ¾ mug (250 ml) of cooked non-leafy vegetables like carrots

#1 ok, I understand, it's like a portion of vege at the cai fan stall - btw, link points to kids' current fave song. Never mind that I don't understand the difference between the two leafy vege, kang kong in #1 and spinach in #4, but ¾ mug of cooked spinach is quite a lot... As is ¾ mug of cooked carrots - sekali the kid turns orange overnight..!

But the one that got me scratching my head is #2. So for my family of five, we need 750g of raw leafy vege. 750g. You know how much of vege that is???

Fairprice sells vege in packs of 150g to 300g. Last time, I always bought three packets of 150g xiao bai cai for Wednesday dinners, i.e. 450g. It's probably less after discarding the ends etc. The kids took a long time to finish their food, and gave me tons of complaints and headaches. But yes, they dug into their bowls and finished it eventually.

Then, I changed their bowls to plates. It's not the standard 25cm plate; ours are 21cm. So the amount for a 25cm plate would fill all the way to the edge of my 21cm plate. But the 450g of raw vege for five of us could fill more than a quarter. I cannot imagine what 750g looks like!!! 150g per pax probably takes up half our plate and my sanity along with it.

Ok, I changed tack. Maybe the serving size for kids is different. As angmohs don't eat our kind of green leafy vege, I searched for Singapore resources only. Only saw that Singhealth suggested a third to half an adult portion for kids 3-6yo. My kids are all older now so maybe half to ¾ for Yang and Yu; Kai is adult size. Even then, half a packet of xiao bai cai is a lot of vege when you don't like vege.

In the end, I don't bother with all the numbers. I just cook an amount that we can all stomach well, which is about a quarter plate (our size) for the kids with the remainder split between the parents - and we usually get more vege than the kids. And I get better mental health (and better poop).

Even with our own serving size, we don't fulfil the two servings of vege a day, as mentioned in the first half of this post. But never mind. If the kids are growing, they are healthy, they can poop, then I'm giving them enough vege. 

Xiao bai cai for Yu ~ 50g raw

He's big and strong, and he poops.

To each family its own.