Offset your Festive Season with the Eat in Colour Christmas Calculator

Christmas 2007 is the year to forget the battle of the bulge! With the average Brit consuming around 4500 calories* on Christmas Day, a quick click on christmasoffsetting.com can ensure you avoid the over-eating guilt come the 1st January.

By using the free offsetting calculator at www.christmasoffsetting.com you can easily measure your festive footprint and add in a few more activities or menu alternatives without having to give up the mince pies!

To make the offsetting process as simple as possible the free calculator allows users to select their expected Christmas goody consumption and find out what they need to do and eat to positively offset it.

For example, if you want to eat one mince pie with three teaspoons of double cream (410 calories), then the offsetting calculator might recommend you swap your breakfast tea and toast with jam for a half a grapefruit and a glass of fruit juice and your next portion of chocolate roulade for fresh fruit stirred in to low fat crème fraiche.

If you’ve been to your office party and had enjoyed two glasses of champagne and snacked on one handful of crisps, three vol au vents, three cocktail sausages and two bite size pizza squares (842 calories), the calculator may suggest you switch the cheese in your sandwich for sliced pear and mustard; clean out your cupboards for 90 minutes to make space for all the presents you’ve received; swap your calorie laden nachos with sour cream for tomato salsa with warm pitta bread and go for a brisk 35 minute walk to positively offset your indulgence.

The site also offers some helpful hints for how to recycle your leftovers, adding some delicious taste sensations to your Christmas Day veg, and discover our Christmas coleslaw recipe, a perfect accompaniment for Boxing Day’s turkey supper.

The Christmas Offsetting scheme is being run by Eat in Colour, a three year campaign aimed at putting the enjoyment back into eating fruit and vegetables.

Eat in Colour Chairman Anthony Levy says, “Christmas is the time of year where all the family are together, there’s an abundance of treats on offer and, inevitably, when we’re in good company, we tend to indulge a little more than usual.

“Making sure we maintain a healthy balanced diet needn’t bring on the winter blues though! The offsetting calculator offers simple ways in which we can offset the effects of our festive food. Predictably, the offsetting tasks are a combination of eating sensibly and taking exercise and, as people who try the offsetting calculator will see, the amount of fruit and veg we need to eat and the level of exercise we need to take are easily completed and can even involve the whole family.”

The Eat in Colour campaign – supported by leading wholesalers and growers and Somerfield, Asda, and Tesco – aims to fill the nation’s newspapers and magazines with really simple ways to prepare, cook and enjoy the best convenience food of all – fruit and vegetables. It also offers advice online at www.eatincolour.com to re-introduce the great taste and simplicity of fruit and veg to people as they go about their everyday lives.

- Ends -

For interviews, further information, hundreds of tips and serving suggestions and colourful photography, contact:
Claire Forster, Jemma Watkins or Lou Massey
Bray Leino PR
T: 0117 973 1173
F: 0117 906 4542
E: eatincolour@brayleino.co.uk

Notes to editors:

Eat in Colour is the first campaign clearly focused on helping people to find practical, quick and easy ways to achieve a healthier diet every day by including more and varied fruit and vegetables alongside, or as part of, favourite dishes. Our website, which can be accessed through www.christmasoffsetting.com is packed with serving suggestions, tips and advice for including more fruit and veg in the everyday diet.

*According to the NHS, January 2007.

The figures used to calculate calories were:

About Eat in Colour

The Eat in Colour Campaign has been created by the Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC), the trade association committed to the support and development of the UK fruit and vegetable industry. The campaign has secured financial backing from producers and importers across the industry as well as Tesco, Asda and Somerfield to commence an ambitious programme of communication and education.

About the Fresh Produce Consortium

The Fresh Produce Consortium is the trade association which represents producers, packers, importers, wholesale, food service, retailers and floral within the UK fresh produce and floral industry. 

www.freshproduce.org.uk