What tricks do you use to make sure you eat your daily fruits and vegetables?
What tricks do you use to make sure you eat your daily fruits and vegetables?
I do smoothies too! 1 frozen banana (not too big) 1 small handful of frozen berries Some hemp seeds / ground flax seeds Almond milk - unsweetened vanilla
Optionally add spinach / kale
I buy bags of mixed frozen vegetables and then mix them in to whatever I’m making for dinner. E.g. if I’m having pasta, I’ll throw some meat and veg into the sauce and serve it all on the pasta. I eat way more vegetables when it’s mixed in to the main dish, than if I have them as a side.
I don’t really use any tricks to eat more fruit. I just buy the ones I like and have them ready to snack on. I buy a lot of bananas, apples, grapes, etc that you can mostly just grab and eat as desired.
As a vegetarian, eating veggies comes with the territory lol. If you’re not having enough veggies already, I’d recommend switching to a cuisine which is veggie-heavy where you don’t need/miss meat, like Indian/Asian/Mediterranean cuisines etc.
For fruits though, the key is to always have some at hand, in a convenient format, so that you’re less likely to grab a back of chips or something. For instance, with apples, you can cut them into pieces and apply lemon juice so that it doesn’t oxidize, and then put it in a small airtight box next to wherever you spend most of your time (could be your desk/couch/bed etc). Same thing with oranges, peel em and put it in an airtight container. Other fruits don’t need such prep work so you can alternate with them, eg grapes or bananas. And the trick is again, always have them nearby you so you’re more likely to reach out to them than for junk food. And make to make this happen, make it as part of your daily routine. Like for me, I make a smoothie the first thing in the morning, and as part of that routine, I also prep my fruit-box for the day.
When it’s hot I like snacking on frozen mango pieces. They sell bags of them in supermarkets. Frozen blackberries and raspberries are also great.
I also like putting vegetables into curry and soup because personally I like my ratio of solid “food” to liquid curry/broth to be higher.
Disclaimer: I make curry from premade pastes and blocks, not from scratch. I don’t love cooking that much, haha.
For Japanese curry from curry blocks: Boil hard vegetables and meat in water until they’re mostly cooked, then stir in some curry blocks and make them dissolve in the hot water. Add soft vegetables. Adjust thickness and saltiness. Done.
For Thai curry from curry paste: Boil hard vegetables and meat in some coconut milk until mostly cooked, then mix in some curry paste and the rest of the coconut milk. Add soft vegetables. Adjust spiciness. Done.
Have you tried punching “batch recipes kale” into a search engine? (but instead of kale, put whichever vegetable you want to eat more of)
Batch recipes are basically like meal prep. But they often taste amazing. If you have leftovers in your fridge that are veggie-laden, tasty, and convenient, odds are you’ll be getting your veggies without even trying.
My little rule is that it’s okay to have Mac n cheese for dinner or frozen pizza so long as I add a veggie
Broccoli is my favorite and so easy. Steam it, boil it, fry or roast. Just add salt and pepper I love broccoli!
Try roasting veggies! Yum!!! Just chop up literally any veggie you have ( okay not lettuce though you psycho) and toss with olive oil, roast in oven on 400 for maybe 20 minutes. Super good! If you’re a good cook or feeling creative you can add spices idk maybe garlic powder that’s easy!
Here’s another trick: BEANS! people don’t usually think of beans as a vegetable but they are! And I think beans are the best vegetable of all! Each one is tastier than the last! Full of fiber and nutrients and even protein. Heat up a can of black beans WITH THE JUICE. Add cumin. Scoop em up with chip! Eat pinto beans. No recipe needed! Pinto beans are delicious! Garbanzo, navy, red, Lima. Yum yum yum! One day you meet the king of all beans, the boss level. The butter bean. Ohhh what a bean that is. The bigger the bean the better and the butter bean is the biggest of all. Sauté them with oil and spices, serve them on toast! Be happy! Spread joy!
(If you’re about to comment that beans are not a vegetable please do me a favor and ask google if that’s true. I’ve had too many conversations about this. Beans are a vegetable. They’re the king of vegetables!!)
Yes thank you. And what is a legume exactly? As members of the family fabacaea legumes include peanuts, clover, peas, green beans, and lupine. What do you notice of that group? One is clearly a nut, or is it? Two are unquestionably vegetable. And what about lupine? Is clover a nut a vegetable or a flower?
Yes beans are legumes. And carrots are “tubers”. Bananas are technically a grain. What about eggplant? It’s a “nightshade” but it’s a vegetable right? Or is it a fruit?
I love when people say beans are legumes and therefore not vegetables. It leads to such an interesting conversation. Many things aren’t as they seem. Some words are used botanically like “fabacaea” while some are strictly culinary like “vegetable”. The word “fruit” is interesting because it’s both! We all know that eggplant is not a fruit and yet it is!
What is a vegetable? Well it’s really up to us to decide. We usually mean ANY part of a plant that can be eaten and usually we mean low in sugar. Beans are part of a plant. They are seeds of a legume just like peas. They are eaten with shells on as green beans but can be eaten fresh without shells like fava beans. Not vegetables? Think again!
I actually did a lot of work to figure out how to eat healthier in a more sustainable way. I wrote a spreadsheet to tally what my diet looked like and what I might be missing nutritionally, found good sources of those misding things and picked ones that I liked the taste of.
Carrots are a good source of vitamin A so I eat them pickled or in salads
Guava is a good source of potassium and vitamin C and I just eat obe of them a day because theyre tasty.
Broccoli has vitamin C and K so I mix them into mac and cheese or eat them with spicy hummus.
Green onions have a lot of vitamin K in them so I use them in salad, on burgers, wherever you would use onions.
Jalapenoes are another good source of vitamin C so they go in salad, on sandwiches, burgers etc. anything I want to be a bit less bland.
Sweet peppers are a good source of vitamin C, are colorful and have antioxidants so I either put them in salad or eat them with hummus.
Avocadoes are a goid source of healthy fat, fiber and potassium so I either eat them straight, on sandwiches, or on salads.
Frozen peaches usually have vitamin C added to them and are available when fresh peaches generally aren’t so theyre a good source of vitamin C while being tasty
Krautburgers can have shredded carrots, cabbage and mushrooms in them.
Burritos you can have tomatoes, green onion, olives, jalapenoes and beans.
Yogurt and fruit
Fruit salad
Veggies have never been a problem for me. Fruit always has been tho.
My solution for that is making a smoothie every morning while I wait for my coffee to brew.
Instead of trying to eat more, think what do you want to cut down? Meat? Carbs?
Then cut those down and replace with a veg dish instead. Buying a vegetarian cookbook helps. You don’t need to go vegetarian, but you’ll find great recipes for vegetables, instead of as an afterthought.
With pretty much any vegetable, salt, pepper, olive oil and crushed garlic roasted in the oven for 20 minutes is tasty.
For me, I’m trying to eat a more Mediterranean diet, for my health, so that means curing meat and carbs and having lots of veg and herbs and nuts. When I make something, i think to myself, what veg would work with this recipe and add that as an extra.
I try to sneak them in as part of other meals, even if I don’t like the vegetable. Like if I have a burrito bowl I will put carrots in it, or a pizza I will put green peppers on it.
Fruits I don’t do as well on, if I get frozen yogurt I will get rare fruits like mango, and I drink fruit juice.
Just eat them.
There is no trick that will make you think an apple is actually pie or make kale taste just like potato chips.
Try new stuff. Go to the Asian grocery store and buy random fruits and veggies you haven’t seen before and try them. Worst case you hate them, but you seem to be there already, best case you love them.
I watch geezer TV and see ads for those “Fruits and Vegetables” pills. I’m not wasting my money on those! But the ads show delicious-looking fresh produce, which reminds me how good they can taste.
Eating a salad of plain dumb lettuce makes me feel like a moo-cow, so I make sure to add something like bits of apple, or grapes sliced in half, avocado, tomatoes,. Crumbled queso fresco or your cheese of choice, and nuts tossed in a hot pan for a minute with just a drizzle of maple syrup and cinnamon aren’t vegetables but they help a salad feel like a meal.
I like to chop and rinse a head of romaine, keep it in the fridge and toss a handful of that, a handful of “spring mix” baby greens, and a handful of baby spinach into my salad spinner, rinse it and mix it in the water, and spinspinspin it dry. Even though they’re “washed 3 times” it really freshens the flavor. And it’s fun, pushpushpushing the big button. Get a salad spinner if you don’t have one.
If baby spinach or baby kale starts to look tired, or you’re tired of it, throw it in a stew or curry, under it instead of (or under) the rice. The heat will wilt it away to practically nothing and you’ll get your nutrients.