THE BEST GIFT TO YOURSELF 

Your health and well-being would have to be the BEST gift you can give yourself and your family. You have heard me speak a great deal about aiming to make vegetables/plant foods at least 60% of your total food intake. This can sound very daunting so I thought I would give you a few hints and tips on how to achieve this.

Eating a healthy diet is actually as easy as following the rainbow. By consuming vegetables (& fruits) of various colours you’ll be getting a broad range of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytochemicals that can enhance your health. Remember, the more intense the colour, the greater the nutrient density.

Why do you need to eat vegetables every day?
You need to eat vegetables every day because you need your supply of vital nutrients every day. Some vitamins, the fat soluble ones such as vitamin A, D and E, can be stored in the body but the water soluble nutrients vitamin C, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12 and folate are needed every single day because they can’t be stored or can only be stored in small amounts. Since the body doesn’t make these vitamins, we have to get them from the food we eat and the richest source of water-soluble vitamins (and minerals) is vegetables.

Our bodies are extremely adaptable and we can survive on less than that 60% but not without cost to our well-being and health. Initially the effects may go unnoticed and be quite subtle or may take a long time to fully develop but eventually the effects can range from just low energy levels to many types of degenerative diseases and reduced immune function.

WAYS TO GET MORE VEGETABLES INTO YOUR DIET

• Aim for each meal to contain small amounts of 5 to 6 different vegetables and aim to eat 10 different vegetable varieties each week.
• Visit a farmer’s market. There’s nothing like fresh grown vegetables and why not support the local economy.
• Try to have some raw vegetables (salads, veg sticks & ‘dip’) as well as cooked (soups, baked, steamed, stir fry, casseroled). 
• Eat at least one raw vegetable dish with every meal even if most of your food is cooked. Raw vegetables contain more nutrients and more life energy than cooked vegetables.
• Sneak vegetables into breakfast and lunch. One reason we don’t get enough vegetables is that many of us consider them merely a side dish to dinner. If you really want to increase your vegetable consumption, you have no choice but to eat them at other meals.   How?
  • Make salad a part of your everyday lunch.
  • Make omelettes or frittatas for breakfast, using egg to hold together sautéed vegetables such as peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, asparagus, or onions.
  • Eat leftover veggies from last night’s dinner with breakfast or lunch.
  • Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and celery, all the time.
  • Make vegetable/salad sandwiches, using almost any vegetable that won’t roll out of the bread

• Use vegetable sticks (carrot, celery, cucumber, zucchini, capsicum, sugar snap peas, snow peas, green or yellow beans) and a healthy ‘dip’ (hommos, avocado, tzatziki, plain yoghurt, ricotta cheese, salsa, curried egg) for morning or afternoon snacks instead of biscuits, muffins etc.
• Eat vegetables like fruit. Half a cucumber, a whole tomato, a stalk of celery, or a long, fresh carrot is as pleasant to munch on as an apple. It may not seem typical, but who cares? A whole vegetable makes a terrific snack.
• Make your own vegetable ‘dip’. Roast some of your favourite vegetables e.g. carrot, onion, garlic, sweet potato (kumara), pumpkin, zucchini, eggplant, capsicum (red, green, yellow, purple) and when slightly cooled, blend them together with a little olive oil, parsley &/or basil.
• Juice them. Invest in a good quality juicer and experiment with different combinations. Juicing is a fabulous way of getting a large quantity of vegetables in a compact way.
• Make your own vegetable soups with as many vegetables as are available or add your own extra beans and vegetables to any pre-prepared soups. The beans will add protein and the veggies will pack in some extra vitamins and minerals.
• Keep some frozen vegetables in the freezer for emergencies. Snap frozen vegetables will still be more nutritious than even the best organic veggies if they have been sitting in the bottom of the fridge for a couple of weeks.
• Take 15 minutes each week to plan a weekly menu and then shop for the ingredients. Shop like the Europeans. Have a plan and shop for fresh produce every one or two days.
• Always cook extra helping at the evening meal. Most people have protein and vegetables at night. Keep some for lunch the next day. A piece of steak can be sliced thinly and added to salad greens and chopped vegetables in a wrap.
• When eating out, ask yourself “How will I get a vegetable at this meal?”

 VALUE ADD    That is…… consider how you can add extra vegetable content to each meal or snack.

For example –
 • Add baby spinach leaves or left over vegetables to a breakfast omelette or frittata.
 • Add some greens / lettuce and sliced capsicum to that tomato & cheese on a cracker.
 • Chopped left over roasted vegetables are delicious when added to a salad.
 • Replace creamy and processed snacks and dips with chunky fresh salsa (finely chopped onion or shallot, capsicum, celery, beans, grated carrot, corn with chopped parsley, coriander with lemon or lime juice).
 • Add vegetables to any pasta dish. Onion, capsicum, zucchini, grated carrot, chopped celery, grated sweet potato, chopped eggplant baby spinach added to a Bolognese sauce make it extra tasty and dramatically more nutritious.
• Add finely chopped, grated or mashed cooked vegetables to meat balls, rissoles, ‘burgers’ or meat loaves.

Do you have any other good ideas on how to easily incorporate more veggies into your diet? Let me know so that I can share them with other patients.