Increase Your Vitality: Eat the Food Your Body Needs

Vegetables give your body vital nutrients and minerals

How can you get enough vegetables in your diet to keep your body healthy? Follow these tips and see if you feel increased vitality.

I’ll Have More Please: Take a few extra servings of vegetables at meal times. Your body actually spends more calories breaking down some vegetables than the actual vegetable contains. So don’t worry about stuffing yourself with vegetables. Nobody ever got fat from eating salads.
Mix it up: Eat a wide range of vegetables. Make sure you’re eating reds, yellows, purples and whites along with all your greens. Add purple cabbage to salads, slice parsnips for soups, grate raw beets into your salad, or eat a variety of vegetables for a snack with dip instead of chips. Root vegetables like parsnips, turnips and carrots are really good with some honey and salt tossed on them then roasted until tender.
Use Imagination: Mix things up by making a stir-fry or a vegetable casserole. Vegetable lasagnas are great, too. Instead of using lasagna noodles substitute eggplant or zucchini in long thin slices.

Go Gourmet: Choose pastas that have vegetables in them like spinach or tomato linguine, or raviolis stuffed with spinach.

Get Fresh: Buy vegetables that you’ll be able to eat in a few days. They lose nutritional value over time.

Be a Foodie: Take your time when selecting vegetables. Choose vegetables that don’t have bruises or cuts. They’ll last longer than those that are damaged. Avoid vegetables that have been in your refrigerator for a while and are slimy or smell bad.

Eat Raw Vegetables: Cooking vegetables depletes essential vitamins and nutrients. Eat as many fruits and vegetables the way nature intended, raw. There are lots of ways to do this. Brocolli and/or cauliflower in salads, eating large salads for dinner and putting shredded raw beets in salad are just a few.

Remember that raw doesn’t always mean uncooked. If you cook vegetables for just a few minutes or until heated through but still crunchy, they are considered raw. Brocolli for instance tastes so much better in salad if you blanch it in boiling water for a minute or less than transfer to a bowl of ice water or run under cold water to stop the cooking.
Be Smart: Take a daily supplement. A multi-vitamin or whole food supplement is the minimum you should be taking if you feel your diet is less than adequate. A calcium supplement is very important for healthy bones and if you’re not eating vegetables for every meal, everyday then you should consider taking a whole-food blend supplement.

Need something a little more specific?
Check out “Creative Ways to Eat More Vegetables.”