Guest Post Series-Fruits and Vegetables

The Good Stuff: Fruits and Vegetables

Change is always difficult, and changing the way you eat is no easy task.  When most people start a diet, the first thing that usually happens is they have to get rid of “this” or “that.”   So, let’s start with some good stuff you can incorporate into your diet.

Fruits and Veggies
Regardless of personal beliefs about nutrition, I think most people would agree that fresh fruits and vegetables are better for you than processed food. This is a natural place to start, something that you can add rather than remove from your diet.

Adding fresh fruits and veggies, in the form of green smoothies, was actually the first step for me in changing the way we ate.  For a little while, after deciding to revolutionize our family’s diet, green smoothies was the only thing extra that I did. It was fun and easy and something that I could get my kids to drink (most of the time).  Although there’s a learning curve when it comes to green smoothies (rather BIG in my case), we now have a handful of tried and true recipes that I can pull from anytime we want to whip them up. (You can check them out here.)

I gradually began offering fresh fruits and/or veggies at each meal and served them raw whenever possible.  I wanted my family to have the greatest benefit possible from what I served them, and cooking the life (and nutrition) out of them just didn’t seem to make sense to me. When I do cook up veggies, I try to quickly steam so they are still crisp-tender and brightly colored; keeping as much nutrition as possible. (*On a side note,  I do home can a few things like peaches, pears and tomatoes that I get from local farmers during their peak season. We enjoy these over the winter months when good produce is hard to find.)

There are two other things I have done to incorporate more greens and veggies into mine and my husband’s diet, in particular.  The first was to move from a meat-centered main dish at dinner to a salad-centered main dish.  In other words, although I don’t always serve meat at dinner, when I do, it is not the “main” part of the meal.  It is most likely a small piece to the side, next to a large salad that fills most of the plate (and I’m talking dinner plate here, not salad plate).

The second thing I did was to become a connoisseur of salads.  This is absolutely crucial, if you ask me, if you’re going to continue with any success eating large amounts of salad and veggies. I previously enjoyed salads but never made them because they seemed so boring and I hated putting the same weird-tasting processed salad dressings on them.  I made it my mission to learn how to make a VARIETY of different salads as well as all my own dressings. (Here are some ideas.)   Variety is important.  Change it up all the time so you don’t get in a rut eating the same thing over and over.  That could be the downfall of your success!

More to  come.....