How to increase veggie intake??

heidyann86

I have a very hard time eating any vegetables any sort of way.. the flavor really doesnt bother me, just the textures. i dont like them crunchy whatsoever! i think i would have a much higher success rate if i could just incorporate them more. Does any one else have this issue? Any suggestions?

jesskreg

An easy way to increase your veggie and fruit intake is to make green smoothies. A green smoothie is basically a smoothie with a base of spinach or other green leafy vegetables (kale,etc.). I make mine with a small handful of ice, about 1.5-2 cups spinach or greens, fruit, and a little water. If you want to sweeten them up a bit, you can add an apple or banana, or a little vanilla almond milk. I've seen many variations of green smoothies; you can even add nuts like almonds or peanuts/peanut butter if you'd like. One of my favorite combinations is spinach, 1 apple, about a Tbs of peanut butter (preferably natural), 1 small banana, and a touch of cinnamon. You can't even taste the spinach! If you'd like you could also add a couple carrots or carrot juice. Just google "green smoothies", and you should be able to find recipes. Hope this helped.

heidyann86

Thanks ive been thinking about doing green smoothies since i just bought the magic bullet.. i just wasnt sure if it was powerful enough to blend greens or carrots. :happy:

monkeybuddha

I used to have loads of trouble eating fruit and veg because of the texture too so don't worry you're not alone. I've slowly changed that though and most of the things I refused to eat in the past I'll now happily eat without a second thought thanks to a lot of perseverance. My very supportive boyfriend used to give me just a tiny raw piece of something I didn't like just once a day and over time I got used to it and eat larger and larger pieces. It takes time though, it took me a whole summer of trying before I could eat a cherry tomato without staring at it on my fork for half an hour, so don't give up!

In the meantime there's loads of different ways to sneakily get your veg into food. Have you tried extra veg, cut up pretty small in things like bolognaise or other pasta sauces, or how about blended soups and smoothies? Or just experiment with different ways of cooking your veg so they're soft and don't have that crunchy raw texture such as different mashed root veg, roasted squash and peppers or even peeling veg like carrot or courgettes into ribbons and using as an alternative to pasta or noodles?

A friend recently told me that you have to eat something at least 14 times in regular succession before you'll start to like it, I'm not sure how true that is but I'm going to give it a whirl with celery my last remaining veg demon!

Good luck and hope you end up loving your veggies as much as I do now

eml48341

Green smoothies are great. I also just bought a juicer to try and get more of the healthy goodness of leafy greens. I know that juicing doesn't give the fiber of a smoothie or eating the vegetables, but I like that I can drink the juice and get double-triple the nutrients than I would eating them.

I also add as many vegetables as I possibly can to my pasta sauces, soups, and chili. Carrots, celery, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, and squash are great added to tomato sauces because I find they take on the flavor of the sauce. If you chop them up smal enough, you may not even notice they are there :-)

auddii

I love roasted veggies. They char up nicely, but if you don't like crunchy, they go tender before starting to brown.

leahestey

Juice em suckers!

plynn54

puree in spaghetti sauce, you wont even taste them

NeverGivesUp

get a juicer and juice them. I looove my veggie juice, makes me feel fantastic.

udallmom101

My kids HATE veggies. I roast stuff like onions, zucchini, asparagus, and roma tomatoes and then blend them and add them to my pasta sauce. Thickens the sauce a little and then I add chopped fresh spinach and have them convinced it's spices. They eat that spaghetti and pasta sauce up!

heidyann86

thanks! i LOVE all types of soups, and will eat all my veggies in that! i just think that theres a lot of sodium in store bought soup (not sure if thats a bad thing) ive also thought about making my own soups and just freezing them for later, but i wasnt sure how much nutrients gets lost when eating them that way.

melinda200208

I have a very hard time eating any vegetables any sort of way.. the flavor really doesnt bother me, just the textures. i dont like them crunchy whatsoever! i think i would have a much higher success rate if i could just incorporate them more. Does any one else have this issue? Any suggestions?

Buy a juicer!! I have one and I love it. One of the recipes I have daily is called the "mean green". Its on the show "fat, sick, and nearly dead" I consists of one cucumber, a handful of kale, I put in a half a bundle of celery, a thumb size piece of ginger root, a lemon, and 2 green apples. I LOVE it!!

heidyann86

thanks for all the ideas! i also have a juicer, and the flavors were great.. but when i saw how much was being wasted in the pulp i figured it wasnt worth my time money or effort.. maybe i just have a crappy juicer!?!

melinda200208

thanks for all the ideas! i also have a juicer, and the flavors were great.. but when i saw how much was being wasted in the pulp i figured it wasnt worth my time money or effort.. maybe i just have a crappy juicer!?!

Yeah, there is the waste of the pulp. But, if you didn't want to waste the pulp there are actually recipes online to use the pulp. You can freeze it and use it for baking or cooking......I dont think I am going to try that though. Yeah, unfortunately you dont get the fiber from juicing but you get all the nutrients. I would never eat that many veggies (especially the veggies that i am juicing) so i figured its worth it for me.
We just got an amazing juicer for our wedding (about $350.00 I think from Bed Bath and Beyond) it works much better but there is still pulp.

Good luck with the veggies!

monkeybuddha

I think home made soup's definitely better than shop bought and I try and make my own as often as I can. As for nutrients lost due to cooking/freezing, I wouldn't worry too much as you're still going to be getting more benefit than you would be without the soup/fewer veggies and who has time to make it fresh every time you want some

ashquin

get a juicer!!!!! you wont regret it

Firefox7275

I have a very hard time eating any vegetables any sort of way.. the flavor really doesnt bother me, just the textures. i dont like them crunchy whatsoever! i think i would have a much higher success rate if i could just incorporate them more. Does any one else have this issue? Any suggestions?

Try soups, stews/ casseroles, smoothies. If you use frozen produce often it is softened so needs less/ no cooking before blending. Juicing is not equivalent to eating whole produce, most authorities would only let you count that as one serving a day however much you drink. If there is any colour left in the pulp that is wasted nutrients, juicers cannot break down all the cells walls and extract all the nutrients.