How to Eat More Vegetables in Your Daily Diet
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Vegetables – we know they’re healthy but they aren’t always our favorite foods. But they are worth adding more of to your diet. Learn how to eat more vegetables in this post.
Vegetables are high in essential vitamins, fiber, and potassium. They are also low in calories and fat.
And best of all, vegetables are filling! 100 calories worth of vegetables will fill you up a lot more than 100 calories of oil or candy.
This post is going to help you learn how to eat more vegetables.
1. Find vegetables you actually like
This one probably sounds really obvious, but it’s so important.
Don’t force yourself to eat healthy food you don’t like just because it’s healthy. If you don’t like tomatoes, don’t eat tomatoes! Does dry kale sound unappetizing? Don’t eat dry kale!
You will never stick to a healthy diet change if you hate what you’re eating.
Make a list of the vegetables you actually like so that you can develop a game plan to incorporate those vegetables into your daily diet.
For example, I love peppers, squash, onions, and broccoli so I utilize those vegetables in a lot of recipes where I can.
2. Swap out rice for riced veggies
Riced veggies are a great way to incorporate more vegetables into your daily life. Cauliflower, zucchini, or butternut squash are ideal veggies to be turned into rice.
Grocery stores sell pre-riced veggies both in the fresh section and in the freezer section so no need to do any hard work if you don’t want to rice the veggies yourself.
Swap out rice in recipes for riced veggies wherever you can. This works really well for dishes like fried rice, meat and rice, Mexican dishes with rice, etc.
3. Swap out noodles
Like riced veggies, vegetable noodles are another great way to add more vegetables into your daily diet without changing things up too much.
Similar to rice, butternut squash and zucchini are great vegetables to use as noodles.
Buy them pre-made or get a spiralizer and make your own veggie noodles.
Incorporate vegetable noodles in lo mein dishes or add some oil and garlic to butternut squash noodles for a tasty dish.
A lot of times when I’m craving spaghetti, vegetable noodles can curb that craving.
4. Swap out wraps
Another way to add some vegetables into your diet is to use lettuce wraps instead of your typical tortilla wrap.
I buy a head of cabbage or some iceberg lettuce and use it as a wrap for a bunch of different dishes.
Try some lettuce wrap tacos or a lettuce hummus wrap for your next lunch.
5. Swap out pizza crust
Cauliflower is becoming a popular ingredient to use in pizza crust for a healthier alternative and it’s another great substitute to incorporate more veggies into your diet.
You can make it yourself or buy a cauliflower pizza crust in the dry foods and freezer sections at the grocery store.
Believe it or not it’s actually pretty tasty!
6. Make some smoothies
Smoothies and smoothie bowls are great ways to sneak in some vegetables during your day.
Use this green smoothie bowl recipe to make a delicious veggie-filled breakfast.
Blending some spinach and kale into a smoothie will add to your veggie intake, and when they are mixed with other ingredients it will taste fruity and delicious, so you may not even notice the vegetables.
7. Eat veggies on your plate first
When you sit down to dinner, choose to eat the vegetables on your plate first before you can eat anything else.
By eating your vegetables first, you won’t get full before even making it to your veggies.
This goes the same when grabbing a snack. If you’re craving a snack, eat some carrots or celery as a snack first. Then, if you’re still hungry grab another snack.
8. Put vegetables on the top shelf
Place vegetables where you’re going to see them in your fridge, like the top shelf. If you see them often, you will think about them more and be more likely to eat them.
Put other foods behind your vegetables or on the bottom.
Out of sight, out of mind is a real thing people!
9. Substitute vegetables for fries
When you’re eating out at a restaurant, it can be easy to let your healthy diet goals go out the window and not get your veggies in.
Common side dishes for a meal at a restaurant are typically fries or chips. Opt to substitute vegetables or a side salad instead of fries when you’re eating out.
Most restaurants let you make that swap for free so there’s no reason not to!
10. Add vegetables to sauce
When you make a sauce for dinner, think about how you can add vegetables to it. Peppers, onions, etc. go well with most sauces and can even be a great flavor boosting addition.
Next time you want to treat yourself to some pasta, add some vegetables to the marina and sneak in those healthy foods to your meal.
11. Meal prep vegetables
If you struggle to incorporate vegetables into your daily meals, meal prep veggies ahead of times so they’re ready to go. Roast a bunch of vegetables on Sunday so that you can just warm them up and eat them throughout the week.
Meal prepping gives you no excuse to not eat vegetables because you already have them prepared!
I also like to keep a couple of bags of frozen vegetables in my freezer for times when I either don’t want to spend time and effort cooking or for when I run out of fresh vegetables and I haven’t made it to the grocery store yet.
12. Get a food processor
Chopping vegetables is the worst, especially when you’re trying to eat a lot.
A food processor can be life changing when you’re trying to eat more vegetables. It will make chopping vegetables so easy because all you have to do is drop the vegetable in, and it’s ready to go in seconds!
I got a food processor a couple of months ago, and it was a game changer for me because I hate chopping vegetables by hand.
13. Choose vegetarian options, even if you aren’t vegetarian
You don’t need to be vegetarian to opt for vegetarian options. Try swapping out your beef burger for a veggie burger or go for a vegetarian chili instead of meat chili.
This will make for an easy way to get more vegetables into your daily diet.
Click here for a delicious vegetarian chili recipe that is PACKED to the brim with vegetables.
Those are the 13 tips to help you learn how to eat more vegetables every day.
Get your nutrients and stay healthy by using these simple tips to eat more vegetables.
Comment below with your favorite veggie-filled recipe.
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