Make Veggies Satisfying

Welcome back! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the end of the month of August.

I want to dedicate this post to vegetables. Ahh, sweet sweet vegetables. If you read that statement and thought “yuck there is nothing sweet or enjoyable about vegetables”, then this post is for you. Vegetables are important, logically I am sure we know this. However, when we are at a place where we no longer assign moral value to food there can be a time where things like vegetables may take a backseat to more “fun” foods, and this is totally okay.

However, clients will often ask me “I want to include more vegetables in my eating, but I really don’t like them” or perhaps they feel like they do enjoy veggies, but their partner or children do not, for example. If this is something that you value working on, including more vegetables in your intake can be a great health promoting behavior that can boost your consumption of fiber as well as vitamins and minerals. But this does not mean you need to choke down steamed and plain greens in the name of “health” or “wellness”. Additionally, frozen, canned or fresh vegetables are all on the same playing field and a lot of times canned and frozen are more sustainable and cost effective options.

I like to point out too that adding flavor to vegetables in the form of butter, cheese, dressing, oil, etc does not take away from the nutritional value of the vegetable itself. In fact, a fun tidbit I love sharing with clients is that many vitamins found in veggies (fat-soluble vitamins: A, D, E, and K) require fat to be utilized and absorbed! That means eating a bowl of salad without any dressing, cheese, nuts or other form of fat is actually doing a nutritional disservice to yourself. And come on, what fun is a salad without those things? You’re much more likely to include vegetables on a regular basis if you prepare and consume them in a way that is satisfying and tasty. And again as above, when food is no longer deemed “good” or “bad”, it is all the same at the end of the day.

I hope this post inspires you to try a new vegetable or new preparation even (or more so especially) if it includes a challenging food to you like butter or cheese. Life is short, have the broccoli with the cheese.