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Five a day guide

Fruit and veg portions you can actually see.

NHS advice is to aim for at least five portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables each day. Meal Pilot turns that idea into a recipe and weekly-planner signal, so you can spot where a meal helps and where a week could use more colour.

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General GP-informed food education from Meal Pilot. It is not personalised medical advice.

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80g

Most fruit and veg

Fresh, frozen, tinned or cooked into a meal usually counts.

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30g

Dried fruit

Best kept to mealtimes because it can stick to teeth.

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80g

Beans and pulses

Useful fibre, but they count as a maximum of one portion per day.

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150ml

Juice and smoothies

They only count once per day and are best limited because of free sugars.

How Meal Pilot estimates it

We look at the parsed ingredients in each recipe, convert qualifying fruit and veg into approximate grams, divide by the recipe yield, and show the result per portion. We exclude potatoes, yams, cassava and plantain, while allowing sweet potatoes, parsnips, swedes and turnips to count.

Beans and pulses are useful, but we cap them separately because NHS guidance says they only count once in a day, no matter how much you eat. Dried fruit and juices use their own portion sizes.

What you will see on the site

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A tomato-rich pasta sauce can contribute.

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Frozen peas stirred into rice still count.

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Chickpeas in a curry can count, but pulses cap at one portion a day.

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Potatoes are nutritious, but they do not count towards 5 a day.

In the weekly planner

The planner adds up the estimated portions from your planned meals by day, then shows a simple average. It is a nudge, not a scorecard: dinner might provide two portions, breakfast and snacks can do the rest.

Plan a colourful week

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Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Sun

NHS source guidance

Meal Pilot’s estimator is based on public NHS five-a-day guidance. The official pages are the best place to check detailed examples and current public health wording.

NHS: 5 A Day, what counts?

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NHS: 5 A Day portion sizes

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Quick wins

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Aim for at least five portions of varied fruit and veg across the day.

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Check per-portion 5-a-day on recipes before you plan the week.

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Frozen and tinned produce count - potatoes and pulses have their own rules.

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Build a week around this advice

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Trust & sources

Written for Meal Pilot by Dr James, MBBS - a practising NHS GP in the United Kingdom. The information below reflects UK public-health guidance (including NHS Eatwell principles and SACN reference intakes). It is educational, not a personal prescription: always follow advice tailored to you by your own GP, practice nurse or registered dietitian.

Author

Dr James, MBBS

Reviewed by

Meal Pilot editorial team with GP review

Last reviewed

June 2026

Important

These estimates are general information. Recipe parsing, cooking losses and serving sizes vary. If you have diabetes, kidney disease, allergies, eating-disorder history, pregnancy-related needs or another medical condition, follow personalised advice from your GP, dietitian or specialist team.

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