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!!)
You’re very enthusiastic about beans and I like that
Beans are legumes. Nutritionally they could be seen as a vegetable due to the way we view vegetables but that doesn’t mean they are a vegetable. Still a legume.
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!
You see every vegetable belongs to a botanical group the way beans are legumes, squash is a cucurbit (so is watermelon!), potatoes are nightshades, broccoli is a cole (also called brassica). All vegetables!
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 decided to Google it as you suggested. The term “vegetable” doesn’t really have a single widely accepted definition. It can apparently be used to describe any edible part of a plant by the broadest definition (i.e. a fruit is a vegetable).
Yes that’s the fun of it! What are green beans and peas if not vegetable? People got really mixed up I think by the food pyramid, which is nothing more than government propaganda and it hasn’t been used for years anyway
I feel like there’s always a debate about keeping the liquid in canned beans vs not. Personally I like to keep it as it makes the dish taste better, but isn’t that where most of the sodium comes from?
You either add salt from the liquid, or you add salt independently. You’re still getting the same amount of salt if you want to make your dish taste good. If you’re avoiding salt for whatever reason, then yeah, don’t use the water, but also don’t use salted canned beans because there’s going to be just as much salt in the beans themselves.
Eat them before you eat anything else. When you are hungry, foods tend to taste better, and your body is not trying to tell you to stop eating yet.
That’s a good tip
I started doing that a few years ago. It’s now part of my habits.
Make sure you swallow them when you’re done chewing.
That’s the neat part, I don’t
If you have a decent blender, making smoothies is an easy way. If you don’t like the taste you can just hold your nose and gulp it down.
This is the way. Also easy to add protein and calories with peanut butter, yogurt, milk. I usually go with frozen fruit with a banana plus all the protein.
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
That’s a good one. I like to use tropical mix frozen fruit in summer. Usually has pineapple, mango, dragon fruit etc. in it
As a vegetarian, eating veggies comes with the territory lol. But 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 bag 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 to get into the habit of this, make it a 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.
Not buying meat or prepared foods in the first place. It’s just fruit, veggies, cheese, bread, greens. That’s what there is to eat, so that’s what I eat.
I mostly eat vegetables raw with some hummus. Since it’s so simple, it’s easy to do on a daily basis. Mostly just rinse them in water and chop them up, so I can eat them by hand or with a fork. After getting used to this method and doing this on a regular basis, I feel much healthier and better in general. So I associate the process of preparation and eating them with feeling good, which encourages me to continue to do so on a regular basis. Also, I don’t buy much processed foods at the grocery store, so there’s less bad food available to me to eat at home. Since vegetables and fruit are the primary options available, I tend to eat them instead of something less healthy.
For vegetables I throw everything into a big stew with a lot of different things (kale, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, potato, mushrooms, tofu, garlic, beans), lots of hot sauce, seasoning, olive oil, etc. and eat the same thing every day, for the most part. I don’t eat enough fruit but I do have a handful of dried fruit with oats every day
Buying em in the first place, if I got em, I’m definetely eating it.
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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.
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.
How do you make a curry?
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.
Hard vegetables (vegetables that are hard to overcook):
- potato
- onion
- carrot
- mushroom
Soft vegetables:
- zucchini
- broccoli
- cauliflower
I drink a cup of carrot juice every day. I eat other fruits and vegetables too, but always have my carrot juice. I made it a habit to drink a cup every morning.
I eat fruits and vegetables with my meals.
