What you should eat at every age

You’ve heard about having 5 serves of veggies and 2 fruits a day, but did you know that the recommended number of daily serves for each food group actually changes as you progress through adulthood?

Depending on your age and gender, you’ll need more of some foods and less of others as you grow older. If it’s been a while since you checked in with the healthy eating guidelines for what you should be eating or drinking, scroll down to your age group to get familiar with your recommended serves.

People who are taller or are very active may need to choose extra serves from the five food groups to meet additional energy requirements – these are shown in the last column of the below tables. No two bodies are exactly the same, so these guidelines provide only an indication of what a well-balanced diet looks like for an average day at that age.

As an adult, your dietary needs stay fairly stable for a number of decades.

Men might be surprised to see that their recommended serves of vegetables and legumes is 6, rather than 5. If you’re not eating enough veggies, try incorporating some into meals that don’t always include vegetables, like breakfast. Recipes like our Brekkie Wrap with Egg and Spinach and Moroccan Baked Eggs are a great way to start your day and increase your vegetable intake.

When you reach your 50’s, you generally don’t need to eat quite as much food. Men’s recommended serves of vegetables and meat or other protein foods are a little bit less, while women’s recommended serves of grain foods drop from 6 to 4.

In these decades, women need to up their intake of dairy or dairy-alternative foods, to ensure they’re getting enough calcium. If you’re not sure you’re getting enough calcium in your food and drink, talk to your GP or a Dietitian.

In your mature decades, the recommended number of serves for grain foods drops for both genders, so you won’t need to eat as much.

Remember that dietary needs depend on how active you are, so if you’re still moving about a lot, then you might need to eat an additional couple of serves from one of the food groups to give you enough energy.

Your food and drink needs can change at certain times of your life. For example, if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, you may need to alter the number of serves of the different food groups you are consuming. You can find more information on the Eat for Health website if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, and should talk to your GP or an Accredited Practising Dietitian if you have any questions about what and how much you should be eating or drinking.

All the above information is great, but if you don’t know what a serve of each food group actually is, you might get a bit stuck when it comes to applying it. Below are some examples of what a serve is for each food group.

Vegetables and legumes/beans
One serve of this food group is about 75grams of food. This is roughly equivalent to:

• ½ cup of cooked green or orange vegetables like broccoli, spinach, carrots or pumpkin
• ½ cup cooked dried or canned beans, peas or lentils
• 1 cup of leafy salad vegetables
• ½ cup corn
• ½ medium potato or other starchy vegetables like sweet potato or taro
• 1 medium tomato

Fruit
One serve of this food group is about 150grams of food. This is roughly equivalent to:

• 1 medium apple, banana, orange or pear
• 2 small apricots, kiwi fruits or plums
• 1 cup of diced or canned fruit

Grain
One serve of this food group is equivalent to:

• 1 slice (40g) of bread
• ½ medium (40g) bread roll or flat bread
• ½ cup (75g-120g) of cooked rice, pasta, noodles, barley, buckwheat, semolina, polenta, bulgur or quinoa
• ½ cup (120g) cooked porridge
• 2/3 cup (30g) wheat cereal flakes
• ¼ cup (30g) muesli
• 3 (35g) crispbreads
• 1 (60g) crumpet
• 1 small (35g) English muffin or scone

Lean meat, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds and legumes/beans
One serve of this food group is equivalent to:

• 65g cooked lean red meat like beef, lamb, veal, pork, goat or kangaroo
• 80g cooked lean poultry like chicken or turkey
• 100g cooked fish fillet or one small can of fish
• 2 large (120g) eggs
• 1 cup (150g) cooked or canned legumes or beans such as lentils, chickpeas or split peas
• 170g tofu
• 30g nuts, seeds, peanut or almond butter, tahini

Dairy and dairy alternatives
One serve of this food group is equivalent to:

• 1 cup (250ml) fresh, UHT long life, reconstituted powdered milk or buttermilk
• ½ cup (120ml) evaporated milk
• 2 slices (40g) or 4 x 3 x 2cm cube (40g) of hard cheese, such as cheddar
• ½ cup (120g) ricotta cheese
• ¾ cup (200g) yoghurt
• 1 cup (250ml) soy, rice or other cereal drink with at least 100mg of added calcium per 100ml

Are you a parent or carer of children or teens? You can find information about the recommended average daily serves they should eat here. You can also use our interactive children’s health guidelines tool to view the healthy food groups servings, sleep, fluid, physical activity and screen time recommendations for children of every age.

You can find more information about healthy eating at the links below.

Healthier. Happier. – Nutrition 101

Eat for Health

Get Healthy