Here's what your day on a plate should look like for a vitamin rich diet

Australians are now spending more on complementary medicines than we do on prescription ones. According to this dietitian, this is what you should be eating if you want to meet your vitamin and nutrient intake - instead of popping a pill.

Source: Insight

Watch the full episode; Vitamins & Supplements on On Demand.

Australians are meant to be eating two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables per day. But according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics only 5 per cent of Australians are regularly hitting these targets.

These days increasing numbers of consumers are turning to vitamins and supplements to treat specific ailments, or boost overall health and wellness. The industry has doubled over the last 10 years – we’re now spending more money on complementary medicines than we do on prescription ones, an estimated $4.9 billion each year.

Yasmine Probst, an accredited dietician from the University of Wollongong says it's not difficult to hit our fruit and veggie targets with diet rather than supplements.

"It takes does a take little bit of forethought but you know, we did some work where we can show that if you have say breakfast in the morning, you have a sandwich at lunch time and you have maybe a stir-fry at dinner with some snacks in between, you can quite easily achieve all the vitamin requirements for your daily intake."

In the video above she shows what an ideal day of food should look like.

"I think over time people can make changes to their food intake and they may be able to consume something that might resemble what we've just seen."