The more vegetables we eat, the better – we all know that! But, apart from chewing on a carrot or preparing a veggie salad, how we can increase the amount of vegetables in our diet signficantly and variably?
Actually, there are many ways you can do that, and here are some tips which may prove illuminating to those who want to have wholseome food on their tables.
1. Order salads instead of fries
When at a restaurant, enjoy your piece of meat with a salad instead of fries – you will be better off tastewise as well!
2. Begin your day with eggs and veggies
Scrambled eggs or an omelet make a good breakfast; as you get your omelet ready, put in onion, pepper, tomato, mushrooms and some spinach – they will enhance the taste as well as provide you with a wholesome starter.
3. Get cut-up veggies at the store
When cooking at home, just dip into the bag and add some pre-cut vegetables to practically any meal to make it richer and more tasteful.
4. Veggies instead of Chips
Dip your veggy into some healthy fat before adding it to your meal, your broccoli or celery will come out tastier this way. You can use guacamole, hummus or some other fat.
5. Go for sweet-veggy based desserts
Sweet root veggies like beets, sweet potatoes and carrots will be a good replacement for refined-sugar goodies.
6. Keep a stock of frozen veggies
Fresh vegetables can go bad quickly, and you will want to have some in store for a later use and be sure they won’t go spoiling on you.
7. Arrange for one day a week to be meat-free
Don’t eat meat on that day, but satiate yourself on vegetables solely.
8. Introduce a new vegetable to your diet every month
Find a veggie you haven’t eaten before and try it through the month in various recipes to settle on those you will like.
9. Set aside an hour for vegetables every week
Choose an hour which you will devote to cutting up veggies: peppers, sweet potatoes, onions, etc., so that in an hour you have a couple of trays of preps for the whole week ahead. Bake them for 45 minutes and put them away to use as side dishes or add to practically any dish.
10. Try pancakes made from veggies
Prepare pancake batter (say, from buckwheat), add finely cut bits of chicken or pork sausage, shovel in a liberal portion of grated gouda and top it with any chopped vegetable you have left in your store – and you are settled with a wholesome pancake teeming with vitamins.
11. Give a veggie you didn’t like another chance
It’s always possible what you didn’t like was not the vegetable but the dish. First, it’s a good idea to try it raw and then think of other food and spices it will taste good with. You can come up with a recipe you will grow to like.
12. When you prepare chopped meat, add veggies to it
When you are making things like meatballs or hamburger patties, grate in some carrot, cucumber, or squash – you are sure to enhance the teaste and make it special.
13. To have your veggies tastier grill them
Best suited for grilling are carrots, beets, cauliflower and corn. Drizzle some oil on them, sprinkle with pepper, salt and your favorite seasoning, and grill them.
14. Put veggies into soups
Soups are excellent for getting lots of vegetables into your diet. Onion, pepper, celery will taste good in all kinds of soups, as well as squash, broccoli, turnip, and beans. Actually you can cook one and the same soup varying it endlessly by adding different veggies every time.
15. Put veggies into the main dish
Use them as stuffing instead of heavily-caloried fillings from cheese and ham – make cordon-blue chicken with spinach and asparagus stuffing, or use grilled veggies as a side dish.
16. Vegetable Soups
Use vegetable soup as an appetizer, replacing less wholesome appetizers with it. It really serves well for this purpose.
17. Put in more veggies
When you are cooking a veggie-based dish, just double the amount of vegetables, and you can come up with a better taste.
18. Use a spinach-lettuce combo
Making sandwiches, always add spinach to lettuce, or maybe even use spinach instead of other sandwich greens.
19. Make pasta from veggies
If you prepare your pasta from squash and/or carrot, you will decrease your carb intake by 50%. It is possible to make them just like pasta, to be twirled onto a fork.
20. Make smoothies with vegetables
You will have a marvelous smoothie for breakfast using a juicer on two or three veggies that go well together. You can begin with apple, carrot and ginger.
21. Add veggies into mashed potato
You can enhance the taste of mashed potato with some cauliflower. If you are an old hand with veggies, don’t use potato at all!
22. Replace mayo with veggie spreads
You can make as good a sandwich dressing with a mixture of spinach, basil, garlic, and olive oil and give up mayonnaise or butter completely. Add some extra flavor with pesto if you like.
23. Make a store of veggie bags
Cut up a few veggies – cherry tomatoes, peas, carrots, peppers – put them into a bag with a zip. It will be handy for many uses from taking it to work to preparing a quick snack.
24. Boil veggies with bacon
When you put some bacon in the pot put in some turnip or collard greens as well – they will become bacon-flavored and save you extra calories eaten without meat.
25. Kale Chips
Eat kale chips and see whether you will enjoy them just as well as potato chips, keep in mind they are more nutritious!
26. Use lettuce wraps instead of bread ones
Your sandwich won’t lose if you pick lettuce wraps of romaine, or collard greens instead of white bread that gives you negligible nutrition.
27. Add greens supplements to your diet
Of course they do not go instead of vegetables, but, being a condensed mixture of more than one vegetable, they will provide the welcome wholsesomeness.
28. Vegetable Snacks
Clean out your cupboards, see to it that there are no calorie-packed foods which will tempt you into a snack. Replace them with stuff for vegetable snacks so you take them when you want one.
29. Imagine a healthy vegetable
Think about how it is growing and getting filled up with nutrients and fiber too in a natural way. Won’t it be better than some lab-prepared stuff teeming with you know not what?
