Eat Your Vegetables

We’ve all heard it:

Eat your vegetables! Vegetables are good for you! Eat your greens!

As a clinical nutritionist, I certainly echo those sentiments to my patients. Personally, I currently eat more greens than I EVER have – and I love them! How do I do it?

Here Are My Secrets

1. Always have greens on hand. Whether you’re growing them in your garden or you’re a consumer of your local farmer’s market or grocery store, buy those greens. It may sound silly, but if you don’t buy them, you won’t eat them!

Also, please note, they do need to be organic. Interestingly, good organic produce lasts quite a long time in the fridge and isn’t ‘buggy’. Find some good sources and you won’t need to worry about throwing your money away on spoiled produce.

2. Have a nice variety on hand.

Some of the healthiest greens are:

kale, collards, bok choy, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, chard, and Brussels sprouts.

A confession: I dislike the taste of spinach AND I happily eat it every day! How does that happen?

I put it in my green smoothie every morning. With organic OJ, a banana, berries, and some nut butter or chia seeds, that lovely organic baby spinach taste that I dislike is nowhere to be found. I’m eating it – about 1 ½ cups worth – but I can’t taste it!

By the way, you can substitute baby kale or sprouts for the spinach.

3. Add veggies, finely chopped and lightly cooked to almost anything.

If you’re having a pasta meal with tomato sauce, add finely chopped kale to the sauce at the very end. The finer you chop it the faster it cooks and the less you taste it.

Don’t overcook your greens – they taste much better when they’re bright green and a little crunchy. You can even add chopped greens that you’ve lightly sautéed to an omelet or even scrambled eggs.

If you’re an onion and/or garlic fan like I am, nothing is easier than sautéing a little onion or garlic in olive oil and adding finely chopped greens to it. It’s pretty darn good just like that, or you can add the whole lot to something you’re making.

4. If you’re a salad lover, try a kale salad.

If you’ve tried it before and found kale too harsh, try giving it a massage – no kidding! Cut out the inner ‘rib’ and then take the kale in both hands and just rub the kale against the bunch on the other hand. You’ll notice the leaves will shrink, darken and become softer, before your eyes. Basically, you’re just breaking down the leaf’s structure. Another alternative method is to massage with a little olive oil and salt. This will pre-prep the greens for your salad while you’re making them tender. If you’re not into massage and also not in a hurry, put a little olive on the leaves and allow them to sit overnight – they’ll be tender by morning.

5. Do you like soup or chili? Regardless of the recipe, I’m using, I always throw in a bunch of kale, finely chopped into the mix a few minutes before serving. You’ll basically never notice it, but your body and your health will!

Getting 5 Servings* of Vegetables Takes Some Planning

*A serving is 1/2 cup of hard veggies and 1 cup of a leafy veggie These are just a few ideas to get you going. The health benefits of these beautiful organic greens are truly impressive. They are loaded with antioxidants and phytonutrients – two big words that translate into the fact that they detoxify you, help you lose weight, and are anti-inflammatory, which means they help prevent degenerative disease. And that’s all pretty impressive!

My advice: Don’t make a big deal about adding green veggies to your life. And don’t think you have to eat them alone, plain or just steamed (Yuk, in my opinion!). Start with camouflaging them in just about anything.

Remember you need a good 5 servings of organic veggies per day. If you start w/ a green smoothie, you can knock out 1 ½ to 2 of them right there. A big salad for lunch and you’ve likely hit another 3, making dinner pretty darn easy at just 2 servings.

Keep in mind the best veggies and make buying those a priority. Play around with them and see how you do. I know I said it before, but it bears repeating, if you don’t have them on hand you won’t eat them. So buy those veggies and start adding them to whatever you’re making. Please write to me after you’ve tried this for a few weeks. I’d love to hear your feedback!