I'm not a rabbit...

Yes,

eat the banana in moderation

Potato, carrots & onion are not really veggies - they are starches

humous is a legume mixed with oil

You don't eat ham every day, right?


Sorry, but those are cold, hard, facts.

Do you like soup?

maybe you just need to be more open-minded.....and try everything

The smoothie will mask the taste of the spinach. you can use blueberries instead of strawberries if you don't like them.

Carrots and potatoes are veggies - but they are starchy veggies and have different nutrients than other vegetables (and more calories). Here is a list of common veggies and fruit - if you haven't tried them, at least try them. http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/?page_id=1600 Lots of different ways to prepare so experiment. If you are on a budget, check out the ads for frozen veggies. They have just as many vitamins, but if you watch for sales and stock up, you can get a big bag for as little as $1 - and each bag will last you probably 2 days. (the reason they are listed by color is an easy rule of thumb is to get in as many different colors as possible since different colors tend to indicate different vitamins and nutrients).

Carrots are considered a vegetable, & you can eat a slice of ham everyday if you want. It does have a lot of sodium & may not keep you full longer than other proteins, but don't feel like you're being sinful if you have it. Some things bother me when I read them & I have to throw my 2 cents in.

On another note, I've just started trying to really incorporate fruits & veggies back into my diet. Check out emilybites.com, she has great recipes & usually tries to incorporate f&v's religiously.

I can honestly say that I hated salad when I started on MFP. But I have grown to love it, I enjoy having it for lunch now. I jazz it up with hummus and cottage cheese.

Carrots are considered a vegetable, & you can eat a slice of ham everyday if you want. It does have a lot of sodium & may not keep you full longer than other proteins, but don't feel like you're being sinful if you have it. Some things bother me when I read them & I have to throw my 2 cents in.

I know what you mean. I hate it when people glaze over the facts with fuzzy logic.

What are your qualifications again?

I like the ballsy going on here.

Carrots are considered a vegetable, & you can eat a slice of ham everyday if you want. It does have a lot of sodium & may not keep you full longer than other proteins, but don't feel like you're being sinful if you have it. Some things bother me when I read them & I have to throw my 2 cents in.

I know what you mean. I hate it when people glaze over the facts with fuzzy logic.

What are your qualifications again?

I like the ballsy going on here.

I know! I kind of swooned when I saw this...

How about cabbage, it's versatile! You could stir fry it with some bamboo shoots, have it in a stew or raw in a salad. Courgettes and pak choi are yummy.

There are so many different salad leaves, keep trying them!!

Have you tried roasting some mixed veg, it tends to make them taste sweeter.

I love vegetables!!

Carrots are good for you and they're yum. Full of vitamins as long as you don't boil the hell out of them! Count them and it's all good. They count towards one of your 'five a day'. You don't want to stop eating them if you don't eat much veg anyway.

You say you like peppers, what about raw pepper slices? Do you like mushrooms? They are good raw in salads and sauteed or grilled for the large portabellos. You can roast them in balsamic vinegar too.

When I met my husband he didn't eat any veg. If he had fried rice from the chinese he would pick out the peas! Now he eats loads of veggies. Often you think you don't like something because when you had it before it wasn't prepared well, or you haven't tried it since you were a kid, but your tastes change alot as you get older.

What about making an Italian Mince (which can be used for lasagne or spagetti bolognese), and filling it with Veges?

I fill mine with onion, garlic, tomato, grated carrot, grated courgette, finely chopped mushrooms and peppers, and sometimes broccoli or celery.

Its not hugely traditional but its good for you and FULL of veges!

Or the other option is to make a Vege Soup. Peel and chop potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, swede, onion, garlic etc, then add a lentil soup mix and cook for 2-3 hours. It may need some more salt/celery salt. Its FULL of veges again, but only about 100 calories for a bowl.

xarrra, I have a suggestion for you on the smoothie track. Definitely put some green leaves in there. Spinach is nice, but kale is Waaaaay better, because of all the nutrition (i remove the tough stem so I digest it better). So long as you make the fruit portion much larger than the green portion, you won't taste anything green at all, but you'll still get important nutrients. Especially if your fruits are berries and/or bananas.

But here's the thing I found - I do not like smoothies that look anything like salad dressing. They can't be green. They can't be beige. They need to be purple-y for me to not be grossed out (if I'm grossed out, my negative association will prevent me from making them). So I suggest you do whatever you need to do to make your smoothies appealing to you, while trying to increase nutrition.

I would NOT do a fruit only smoothie, because that's too much sugar, pre-processed (in blender) for the body to handle. It is better to eat the fruits straight, with chewing, rather than getting it broken down in liquid form to immediately impact your blood sugar. At least if you add something green and maybe some protein or some yogurt, it's less of an impact. I like coconut flakes, or coconut milk as a protein/fat ingredient in my smoothies to slow down the sugar.

In general, though, you can make a smoothie any way you like, with whatever ingredients you like. I suggest experimenting to find what you like best. Make sure it's sweet enough to be appealing, while having balancing things in it too.

P.S. Carrots are now and have always been vegetables, regardless the current fashion in the dogmatic personal trainer circle. Yes, carrots are starchy vegetables (along with most root veggies, peas, and corn), to be considered or avoided if low-carbing, but they are vegetables all the same. It would be better to have a starchy root rather than no vegetables whatsoever in a diet.

There are certain vegetables that you might want to eat in moderation such as potatoes but if your going to eat them try sweet potatoes over regular potatoes. I think that for breakfast, if you have eggs, try incorporating a little spinach, mushrooms, onions, peppers, maybe even tomato (fruit). For lunch I'll eat hummus which is quite easy to make at home and stores well too, and I'll dip my carrots, cucumbers, and red bell pepper in the hummus and I'll eat 1 slice of bread too. I even dip my tomato in the hummus. I eat a low carb, low calorie diet, and I don't eat meat so getting those veggies into my diet is very important. You can bake the sweet potatoes on a Monday so that you have them on hand for lunch or dinner and you don't have to wait, just heat them up once they are baked. For dinner I always have some sort of green vegetable, kale is great sauteed with garlic and a teaspoon of oil, green beans mixed with some balsamic vinegar and then baked are delicious and the vinegar becomes sweet, it looses it's tang, satueed spinach, bake asparagus with salt and pepper and a little olive oil or cooking spray and your set. I also buy the Dole coleslaw mix and I chop up mushrooms, ginger, a little red pepper if I have it on hand, scallions, broccoli, and cubed tofu but you can use lean ground turkey and a packet of soy sauce and you kind of have the filling of an eggroll just with more veggies. lol I never eat rice and this holds me over, I'm never hungry after that-it makes a lot.

Always eat fresh veggies but buying frozen isn't so bad and it's convenient opposed to canned. Canned vegetables have too much sodium and I don't like feeling bloated especially when I'm trying to lose weight. I would think most people feel the same way as I do.

Another thing I would suggest would be finding locally grown, organic produce. If you have a Farmers' Market near you, it's actually cheaper than shopping at a grocery store (and so much more fun!). The difference in taste between mass-produced veggies and local veggies is UNBELIEVABLE! I already liked most fruit/veggies but I eat a lot more of them now that I'm eating ones with so much more flavor.