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How to Get More Vegetables Into Your Diet

How to Get More Vegetables Into Your Diet

Most of us would benefit from eating healthier. In fact, the huge majority of us would benefit from a total dietary overhaul, such is the general quality of western food choices. A good place to start is with the plant content, so let me show you how to get more vegetables into your diet…

There is a myth that cooking and eating healthier food is much more difficult or takes far more effort. Where I agree to a point, there are ways that you can make things easier. Using a few quick and simple tips you can give yourself an easy dietary makeover that will see you benefit physically, mentally and financially.

The first and most important aspect of living well is eating well. Fill your body with junk food and you will quickly feel, look and perform like crap. Sickness will be a frequent visitor, sleep will be poor quality and buying processed foods will hammer your wallet. If you believe otherwise, check out my post on is healthy food really more expensive?

For literally pennies you can knock up a soup that will have you full, satisfied and able to eat a days worth of vegetables in one go! Depending on your cooking methods, you can cook some soups in less than 5 minutes, removing the ‘it takes too long’ argument at the same time.

How to Get More Vegetables Into Your Diet, Weight Loss, Nutrition, Health, Food

As I mentioned, some soups take very little effort and the rewards are really worth it. You may think that a soup isn’t a filling meal, but I haven’t found that to be the case and I have a huge appetite. If you think about how much food goes into making a soup (we roast a whole tray of vegetables for a vegetable soup), you are eating more than you realise. Just because it has been blended down to a puree, it doesn’t mean it is any less substantial!

My go-to method for making a soup is really simple. I cook my vegetables in stock or I roast them. I then add them to my blender and puree, gradually adding stock until I reach the consistency I am after.  How I cook vegetables depends on their type – I typically roast ‘Mediterranean’ vegetables in the oven and cook root vegetables in a stock.

Any meats I use in soup are either cooked in the stock, or cooked separately and added to the soup either during the blending stage or afterwards if I want a bit of texture.

Below are a few of examples of soups I have cooked recently – hover your mouse over them to find out what is in each!

Weight Loss, Nutrition, Health, Food, How to Get More Vegetables Into Your DietHow to Get More Vegetables Into Your Diet, Weight Loss, Nutrition, Health, Food

So soups are one quick and easy way to eat lots of fresh vegetables, but you won’t want to eat a soup for every meal! Fear not though, there are plenty of other ways to cook healthy food with little effort!

My preferred method of cooking healthy food is one-pot. To be truthful, this is mostly because I hate washing up and cooking (and eating when possible) from one pot appeals to my lazier side. We have an amazing Le Cruset casserole pan/pot/dish which makes life easy – you can use it to fry, braise (broil to my American readers), boil, roast and bake in it.

The point is I can use it to cook so many dishes as the pot I use is so versatile. Although not cheap, I suggest you buy a similar item – it will last you a lifetime and provide you with a load of options when it comes to your cooking.

The meal I have cooked below contains chicken and bacon covered in a cheese and chive sauce. Alongside that there is broccoli, leek and peas. Quick and easy, low carb and tasty. This can be done in less than 30 minutes and is a way to fill yourself with vegetables – anything can be put into a similar dish. Meals like this are a great way to use up vegetables that are lurking in the fridge!

Weight Loss, Nutrition, Health, Food, How to Get More Vegetables Into Your Diet

Below is a low carb lasagne – by replacing the pasta with cabbage, leek or in this case, aubergine, you can use this dish as a vehicle for lots of vegetables. If you look closely you will see aubergine, onions, peas, carrots and the tomatoes used for the sauce. In one meal you will have consumed 5 vegetable portions. This can be a way to ‘hide’ vegetables in a dish if you or your kids don’t like them as they are dominated by other flavours and tastes. A great way to get more vegetables into your diet.

Remind me again why you think eating 5 a day is tough?!

Weight Loss, Nutrition, Health, Food, How to Get More Vegetables Into Your Diet

Again, I have used my favourite pot for this little concoction below. I did this to use up a load of vegetables left in the fridge. This meal contains chicken, bacon, onions, carrots, cabbage, peas and broccoli. The method was simple – cook the meat and onions, then add the vegetables and a chicken stock. Cook until the stock almost completely evaporates, cover in cheese (here I used left over cheddar and parmesan) and bake in the oven until the cheese melts. Less than 30 minutes, enough to feed 2 adults and contains 5 vegetables.

Weight Loss, Nutrition, Health, Food, How to Get More Vegetables Into Your Diet

So here you have examples of my own life how I manage to cook healthy meals quickly and easily. I know there aren’t any recipes here – they will be coming next year in an e-book I am writing.

My point with this post was to provide a little bit of inspiration and show you ways you can cook vegetables without resorting a boring, over-boiled mush that puts people off and is horrible to eat. With a bit of thought you can turn basic, cheap vegetables into really tasty meals. Try these six to begin with and see how you go from there!

One last tip for making healthy eating easier…

Use your feezer – cook extra and freeze meals for convenience later on. That way you have no excuse when it comes to eating healthy food with little notice – you wont always have time to cook a healthy meal, but if you have some frozen then you have made life easy for yourself.

Good luck with your healthy cooking – now you know how to get more vegetables into your diet you can experiment with all kinds of different dishes!

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HoylesFitness

Owner of www.hoylesfitness.com. Personal Trainer, Father and fitness copy writer. Working hard making the world fitter and healthier!

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