Eat All Your Veggies!

Happy Monday everyone! It's still beautiful weather here in Boston and I have to say, it's hard to focus on life when it's this gorgeous outside!

Did you guys know that March is National Nutrition Month? Well it is. I eat a pretty healthy diet, but one of the areas that I struggle the most is in the vegetable category. Insoluble fiber veggies (aka most of them) hurt my stomach if I eat more than a little, and almost all raw veggies bother me as well. This means that I have a limited number of veggies I can eat at all AND I have to plan to cook the veggies if I want to eat them. This combination does not make eating vegetables easy at all.

However, we all know about the importance of vegetables! I have been reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. He emphasizes that we cannot simply isolate the nutrients in vegetables and assume they will have the same benefits. Many of the benefits of the nutrients in vegetables may only be experienced if we eat our vegetables.

According to the food pyramid, I (as a 19-30 year old female) need 2 1/2 cups of vegetables per day. Today I had:

Breakfast: 1/4 cup of pumpkin
Lunch: 1 cup of zucchini, red peppers, mushrooms and beans (yup they count as veggies, yippee) on my pizza
Dinner: 1 cup of mashed butternut squash

Total: 2 1/4 cup of vegetables.
Truthfully I thought on most days I was probably a lot lower than this, so getting within 1/4 cup of the recommended amount is actually pretty good for me! However, my veggie pizza really helps me with this. On days when I do not eat veggie pizza for lunch I probably struggle to meet this goal a lot more.

Some of the ways that I try to incorporate veggies now include...

1. Add Veggies To Breakfast

Eating a salad at lunch or a side of veggies at dinner is pretty common. However, it's easier to incorporate veggies if I try to eat them at ALL meals. I love adding pumpkin to my oatmeal and it gives me 1/4 cup of vegetables before I even leave the house. I have been scheming of a way to add vegetables to my non-oatmeal breakfast tomorrow so I'll let you know how it goes...

2. Prepare ahead of time.

Let's face it, we are all more likely to eat our veggies if it's easy. On Sunday morning I woke up and ate breakfast before the gym. While I digested a bit I just started cooking veggies like a madwoman. On one burner I was boiling my butternut squash pieces, on another burner I was steaming zucchini, mushrooms. In the oven I was roasting a red pepper. You know...the usual Sunday morning. Haha.

But seriously the whole process took about 20 minutes and then it was into tupperware everything went and it was ready for my lunches and dinners for the week.

3. Sneak veggies into your favorite meals.

The Green Monster is probably the best example of this. Everyone loves smoothies, why not add some spinach? Unfortunately spinach and I do not do well, so I've had to get creative in other ways. I love pizza, but I can't eat cheese so instead I make a veggie and bean pizza. It's an awesome way to get my veggies in and it's still delicious.

Tomato sauce + zucchini + mushrooms + roasted red peppers + black beans.

Even though I have some ways to eat my veggies, I could still improve. My current goals as far as veggies go include:

1. Try to get 2 1/2 cups of veggies per day.

2. Try to incorporate veggies into my breakfast even on days I do not eat oatmeal.

3. Start roasting my veggies more often. I think it might be better nutritionally (could be making that up) and also I think they taste better :)

What is your favorite vegetable?

My favorite is potatoes! I also love carrots.

Do you get enough vegetables every day? Do you have any good tips for eating more veggies?