How do you include a rainbow of foods in your diet (that still taste good)?

They way to eat them is to 1) buy them, and 2) eat them before they turn to mulch in your refrigerator.

Buying them is fairly straightforward. Eating them means that you reach for them first before other choices. I have found that I like eating bell pepper (red, yellow, orange), celery, mini cucumbers, etc. I cur them up and put them in my lunchbox, along with a small sandwich and a single-serving guacamole. Good stuff!

I find vegetables delicious! I work them into all sorts of recipes, use spice mixes and sauces, create meals around them… I have no difficulty having lots of them because eating them doesn't make me miserable because I make them taste good.

A lot of us grew up with boring, boiled bland veg and that's what we associate them with. Google interesting recipes for veg, buy some spice blends. big tip is to start roasting them - it makes them delicious!

I buy frozen. The less prep, the easier it is to keep it up. 5 minutes in the microwave and throw it into everything I eat.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer

IDEA Fitness member

Kickboxing Certified instructor

Been in fitness for 40+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Gee, I dunno. I love veggies and fruits, so they play a big role in my eating: Fresh, frozen, dried, canned (in the limited range of cases where canning doesn't degrade enjoyability), pickled . . . you name it. Personally, I find them filling in addition to tasty.

When I reduced calories, while I"m farFAR from a low carb-er, one thing I did to reduce calories while getting good nutrition was to cut down on what I consider "filler carbs", among things that had previously been a bigger proportion of my (over-)eating. For me, t.hat was a reduction - not total elimination - of bread, pasta, rice, some other grains.

By doing that, I freed up calories to use on protein - maybe a slightly higher than average challenge for me because I'm vegetarian - but I still wanted some volume in my eating, which is important to me for satiety. Veggies were a big part of the solution. For example, instead of eating pasta with some marinara and parmesan, I might cut down on the pasta and add lots of veggies to the marinara (any veggies I like), or even eliminate the pasta entirely had have a veggie soup/stew instead.

Over a decade before, after cancer treatment, I had already used a plan provided by my big employer's employee health promotion department. We got a book (for adults) about increasing veggies/fruits with suggested tactics and some recipes, and a checksheet.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but the idea was to work to get X different colors of veggies/fruits daily/weekly. The checksheet had a list of colors, some examples of veg/fruit those colors, then days of the week across the page where we could note how many servings of which things we ate of that color. You would total them across the bottom for each day, then add up the sheet for the week. It made it sort of a game. There's no magic there, but it focused my attention and made habit change a little more fun.

Some specific things I do:

• Always have fruit in the house, including several dried fruits (which I routinely eat alongside water, coffee or tea so they're more filling)
• Make a big batch of various roasted veggies, eat some for that meal, and put the rest in the fridge to use over the next few days in salads, sandwiches, or reheated in things like pasta sauce or soup.
• Focus on my routine eating habits, and working those foods into that routine. Basic example: My daily oatmeal always has 100g of thawed frozen mixed berries
• Make it a point to try new things, including things I've never heard of. Farmers markets, stores focused on international eaters (Asian, Middle Eastern, Hispanic, etc.), and a huge local produce store are good sources for me. If I see something new, I look it up on my phone to see if it's manageable to cook/eat, and buy those that seem practical. I've learned some new things that I really like. Where relevant, I make it a point to try it multiple times in different ways, if the first try isn't either obviously wonderful or totally revolting. Things that are middling can be great cooked in another way, and things that are mildly off-putting because unusual to me sometimes grow on me.
• Especially when arriving home feeling hungry, but needing to cook a meal, I first cut up whatever raw veg I have on hand, and nosh on those as I cook
• In the MFP context, I have several nutritional goals. One of those is to get a bare minimum of 400g of veggies/fruits every day, and ideally 800g+. Since I'm one of those food scale people, it's easy for me to scan my diary and think about whether I need a bit more that day. When I do that, fiber and micronutrient goals tend to come out pretty OK on average without micromanaging them.
• As a side bonus, I'm one of the people for whom eating plenty of fruit virtually eliminates cravings for less nutrient-dense but high calorie sweets like candy and baked goods

Some of that may be idiosyncrasies, not sure. 😉

It's mostly marketing and if your eating a decent amount of fruit and veg then your not missing out and the minutia and reductive thinking which this whole concept is based on is an over simplification and limited in predictability (someones individual needs and outcome). It's like the marketing for fiber, and now the more is better campaign is in full swing, same type of thinking. imo of course.

I eat very little fruit and vegetables, mostly meat. Last night was a pound of hamburger and 2 eggs. My goal is nutrition. There's too much sugar in fruit and plants use starch for energy. Also, the fiber in vegetables causes me constipation and limits access to any vitamins. (Look up the definition of net carbs) Most worthy topic!