Do you remember being a little kid at the dinner table forced to eat your veggies? Did your parents tell you to eat your broccoli so you can grow big and strong?
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| Spinach Salad with Goat cheese, steak, bacon, red onion and balsamic vinaigrette |
They weren't wrong! Vegetables are super nutrient dense, packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. While that description may not whet your appetite, they truly can benefit your:
- immune system
- cardiovascular health
- muscle building
- mental health
- and more!
"But I just don't like them", "It's hard to get enough in", "I take a vitamin", you might say.
To that I say, you can learn to like them and a lot of it has to do with how you prepare them. There are some ways you can increase your vegetable intake throughout the day, and vitamins and minerals are more optimally absorbed when taken in from their natural form. Here are some of my tips and tricks that I personally apply:
- Have a variety - this is important so you get a variety of nutrients but also because it get's very boring and monotonous to eat the same broccoli every day.
- Have vegetables at all of your meals. - I used to primarily eat vegetables at dinner which made it very difficult to eat a full day's worth of vegetables. Try to switch up your meals and add vegetables into each meal. For instance: Breakfast: egg scramble with veggies and toast, add riced cauliflower/zucchini noodles/grated carrot into your oatmeal, add vegetables into your morning smoothie. Lunch: Salad, side salad, side of snacking vegetables like baby carrots or celery. Dinner: Big salad, hefty side dish of cooked vegetables, use vegetables as a base for a stir fry or "pasta" dish e.g. spaghetti squash with chicken, sauce, and cheese, cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, etc. The possibilities are endless.
- Prep your veggies - if you often find it a struggle to prepare a home cooked meal when you get home, it's not always easy to find a quick tasty vegetable dish. If you can, try roasting some veggies to have on hand throughout the week.
- Cook with fat, season and enjoy! This one is very important. You don't have to force feed yourself mushy, bland, greens. Try cooking with different fats and seasonings. I've recently been cooking with ghee and let me tell you, it takes brussel sprouts to a whole new level. Not only does cooking with fat make vegetables more enjoyable, but many vitamins are fat soluble meaning they are better absorbed when paired with fat.
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| Cauliflower "fried rice" with egg, shrimp, sugar snap peas, and carrots |
Your parents may not be forcing you to eat your greens anymore, but you may just find out that eating vegetables is not that hard to do!
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| Egg Scramble with bacon and brussels, cooked in ghee |
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| Avocado toast with over easy egg, brussels and bacon, clementine |
Do you struggle with eating enough vegetables or are you part rabbit? I know some people love vegetables!
*An easy to read article that briefly discusses some benefits of vegetables related to fitness: https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/value_of_vegetables.htm
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