My little rule is that it’s okay to have Mac n cheese for dinner or frozen pizza so long as I add a veggie
Broccoli is my favorite and so easy. Steam it, boil it, fry or roast. Just add salt and pepper I love broccoli!
Try roasting veggies! Yum!!! Just chop up literally any veggie you have ( okay not lettuce though you psycho) and toss with olive oil, roast in oven on 400 for maybe 20 minutes. Super good! If you’re a good cook or feeling creative you can add spices idk maybe garlic powder that’s easy!
Here’s another trick: BEANS! people don’t usually think of beans as a vegetable but they are! And I think beans are the best vegetable of all! Each one is tastier than the last! Full of fiber and nutrients and even protein. Heat up a can of black beans WITH THE JUICE. Add cumin. Scoop em up with chip! Eat pinto beans. No recipe needed! Pinto beans are delicious! Garbanzo, navy, red, Lima. Yum yum yum! One day you meet the king of all beans, the boss level. The butter bean. Ohhh what a bean that is. The bigger the bean the better and the butter bean is the biggest of all. Sauté them with oil and spices, serve them on toast! Be happy! Spread joy!
(If you’re about to comment that beans are not a vegetable please do me a favor and ask google if that’s true. I’ve had too many conversations about this. Beans are a vegetable. They’re the king of vegetables!!)
I decided to Google it as you suggested. The term “vegetable” doesn’t really have a single widely accepted definition. It can apparently be used to describe any edible part of a plant by the broadest definition (i.e. a fruit is a vegetable).
Yes that’s the fun of it! What are green beans and peas if not vegetable? People got really mixed up I think by the food pyramid, which is nothing more than government propaganda and it hasn’t been used for years anyway
I feel like there’s always a debate about keeping the liquid in canned beans vs not. Personally I like to keep it as it makes the dish taste better, but isn’t that where most of the sodium comes from?
You either add salt from the liquid, or you add salt independently. You’re still getting the same amount of salt if you want to make your dish taste good. If you’re avoiding salt for whatever reason, then yeah, don’t use the water, but also don’t use salted canned beans because there’s going to be just as much salt in the beans themselves.
Make sure you swallow them when you’re done chewing.
I eat fruits and vegetables with my meals.
Not buying meat or prepared foods in the first place. It’s just fruit, veggies, cheese, bread, greens. That’s what there is to eat, so that’s what I eat.
That’s the neat part, I don’t
When it’s hot I like snacking on frozen mango pieces. They sell bags of them in supermarkets. Frozen blackberries and raspberries are also great.
I also like putting vegetables into curry and soup because personally I like my ratio of solid “food” to liquid curry/broth to be higher.
How do you make a curry?
Disclaimer: I make curry from premade pastes and blocks, not from scratch. I don’t love cooking that much, haha.
For Japanese curry from curry blocks: Boil hard vegetables and meat in water until they’re mostly cooked, then stir in some curry blocks and make them dissolve in the hot water. Add soft vegetables. Adjust thickness and saltiness. Done.
For Thai curry from curry paste: Boil hard vegetables and meat in some coconut milk until mostly cooked, then mix in some curry paste and the rest of the coconut milk. Add soft vegetables. Adjust spiciness. Done.
Hard vegetables (vegetables that are hard to overcook):
- potato
- onion
- carrot
- mushroom
Soft vegetables:
- zucchini
- broccoli
- cauliflower
I buy bags of mixed frozen vegetables and then mix them in to whatever I’m making for dinner. E.g. if I’m having pasta, I’ll throw some meat and veg into the sauce and serve it all on the pasta. I eat way more vegetables when it’s mixed in to the main dish, than if I have them as a side.
I don’t really use any tricks to eat more fruit. I just buy the ones I like and have them ready to snack on. I buy a lot of bananas, apples, grapes, etc that you can mostly just grab and eat as desired.
I like most veg and fruit. I suppose you are looking for palatable ways of eating these? One veg I don’t like is eggplant, but it’s actually passable as lasagna or prepared as a schnitzel.
I watch geezer TV and see ads for those “Fruits and Vegetables” pills. I’m not wasting my money on those! But the ads show delicious-looking fresh produce, which reminds me how good they can taste.
Eating a salad of plain dumb lettuce makes me feel like a moo-cow, so I make sure to add something like bits of apple, or grapes sliced in half, avocado, tomatoes, dried cranberries, fresh strawberries. Crumbled queso fresco or your cheese of choice, and nuts tossed in a hot pan for a minute with just a drizzle of maple syrup and cinnamon aren’t vegetables but they help a salad feel like a meal.
I like to chop and rinse a head of romaine, keep it in the fridge and toss a handful of that, a handful of “spring mix” baby greens, and a handful of baby spinach into my salad spinner, rinse it and mix it in the water, and spinspinspin it dry. Even though they’re “washed 3 times” it really freshens the flavor. And it’s fun, pushpushpushing the big button. Get a salad spinner if you don’t have one.
If baby spinach or baby kale starts to look tired, or you’re tired of it, throw it in a stew or curry, under it instead of (or under) the rice. The heat will wilt it away to practically nothing and you’ll get your nutrients.
Just eat them.
There is no trick that will make you think an apple is actually pie or make kale taste just like potato chips.
Try new stuff. Go to the Asian grocery store and buy random fruits and veggies you haven’t seen before and try them. Worst case you hate them, but you seem to be there already, best case you love them.
Tricks? I just enjoy them. But I think the most important part of making sure you’re eating enough of anything in a healthy and varied diet is to meal plan. I grocery shop to accommodate most everything I need for the week with some gaps here and there for leftovers and eating out. I usually eat Greek yogurt with fresh berries, walnuts, granola, and chia seeds for lunch. So I’ll stock a big tub of yogurt and a couple packs of whatever berries look good that week. Sometimes I’ll get tired of yogurt, so I’ll eat some eggs or leftovers. Dinner is where most of the planning lies. I stock a few regular items that I always know I can make different meals from in a pinch and then I plan maybe 1 or 2 meals that require more planning and non-regular grocery items. So for regular items, I like to keep chicken pre-processed and prepared in the freezer, potatoes, rice, onions, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, and lettuce. Those items plus whatever I have in the way of canned goods can make a lot of different meals such as cream of mushroom chicken, chicken sandwiches, chicken stir-fry, etc. For the in-depth meals I either plan to pick up what I need to make something that week, or I make a workhorse meal that makes a ton of food that I can process or freeze for use later to make quick easy meals. Some examples of this include pot pie filling, pesto, or raw falafel. All of these take at least an hour usually more to prepare a massive batch. But now that it’s done, I have many many meals that I can eat just from thawing out a portion from the freezer. So there you have it. My only tricks are that I enjoy fruits and veggies and that I’m very well versed in meal planning. To be fair, meal planning is not easy and it is definitely a skill that I think everyone should learn to develop. But once you do, you won’t need to worry about if you’re getting enough of the foods you need because it’s all part of the (meal) plan.
I use the trick that I’m an adult. It seems to help a lot.
Why be rude to a stranger?
They must be esting all the vegies they don’t like because it makes them feel like a big boy / girl
What’s rude about what I said? It’s true.
I make fruit a part of every breakfast. I plan the rest of my meals around veggies that are on sale. If it’s a veg I don’t really like (usually texture issues) I hide it in something. Risotto and pizza are two of my favorites.
I try to sneak them in as part of other meals, even if I don’t like the vegetable. Like if I have a burrito bowl I will put carrots in it along with everything else, or a pizza I will put green peppers on it along with pepperoni.
Fruits I don’t do as well on, if I get frozen yogurt I will get rare fruits like mango, and I drink fruit juice.
I try to eat a variety of foods as much as possible.
Being vegan.
