Vegetables

You need more vegetables, period, end of story. No single habit will improve your health and well being more than significantly upping your vegetable consumption. So here are some of my tips:

1. Eat the highly nutritious vegetables
***like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, red peppers, asparagus, tomatoes and spinach. Leave the iceberg lettuce for the rabbits.

2. KEEP THINGS SIMPLE.
***buy bags of precut vegetables whenever possible. Both Metro Market and Whole Foods have great precut bags of broccoli and cauliflower. Get the BIG bags!!

***Buy baby carrots and cherry tomatoes. No need to cut anything, just toss them in with the rest of your veggies.

3. Try steaming
***More than one floret of raw broccoli and I honestly gag. But, steam broccoli and I can eat it all day long. An added benefit from steaming is there's no crunch. So you can eat it at your desk without everyone hearing you chomp away.

4. make it tolerable
***If you can eat raw veggies all day long more power to you. I can't, I need help. My saviors are organic butter, sea salt, olive oil and some fruit. Just a little goes a long way to making vegetables more palatable. Don't be afraid of adding whatever you want to make the veggies taste better. The goal is to get the veggies into your body. A little "bad" stuff going along with them is no big deal. My only advice would be to not add any sugar.

5. EAT IT!!
***Your goal every single day should be to eat all of the vegetables you made that day, no matter how long it takes. You may be done by noon or 9pm, it doesn't matter, just finish all of it. (Although if you're done by noon you likely should've made more veggies! NEVER go to bed without eating all of your veggies).

6. Organic?***Sure, if organic is available by all means try to eat organic. But don't freak out if organic is not available. Certainly don't pass up a veggie because it's not organic. Wash it and eat it!!

How I do it.
1. In the morning I get my steamer ready and toss in the entire BIG bag of broccoli and cauliflower.
2. I cut a bunch of asparagus in half (a bunch is now only $1 at the fruit stand on the first floor of the Grand Ave.). I take the top halves and toss them in the steamer also.
3. I quickly slice up half a red bell pepper into strips and toss them into the steamer.
4. While those veggies steam, I get out my bag of spinach and take a good sized handful and toss it in my large Tupperware container.
5. To the container I toss in baby carrots and cherry tomatoes.
6. I lightly cover those with some flavored olive oil and sea salt.
7. After the veggies are steamed I toss all of them into my large container with the spinach, carrots and tomatoes.
8. I add more sea salt and some melted organic butter.
9. Finally I'll add some chopped up apple, some type of berry if I have some and a variety of nuts (walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, etc.)
10. That's it. Total time is about 10 minutes (that's only 0.7 % of your day to make the other 99.3% feel a lot better)

Some advice:
1. The container is large. I have no problem lugging it around. If you have a problem, split it into smaller containers. BUT still eat all of the veggies you prepared whether they're in 1 container or spread out in four containers.
2. Don't worry about fruit. Fruit will take care of itself. Use fruit as a garnish to help the veggies go down easier (like I do with berries and apple). This should NOT become a fruit salad. No more than 20% should be fruit.
3. Eat the veggies whenever you want (and even when you don't want). Eating them throughout the day you'll be amazed at how much you can consume. The more the better.
4. I've checked. There is no law against eating vegetables at breakfast time. The earlier you start eating them the quicker you'll reap the benefits.

5. Paired with some quality protein (meat), it's tough to beat.
6. Try it for just 1 week and you'll be sold.