The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Throw Down the Gauntlet => Topic started by: Fresh Bread on October 05, 2017, 10:04:20 PM
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I've been lacking energy and motivation and my jeans are getting tight so unless I want to outsource all my chores and buy a new wardrobe I reckon it's time to sort out my diet. You are what you eat, right?
The dietary advice here* includes the "five and two" motto, which helps with a balanced diet and might even reduce the risk of some cancers**. I think if I get the veggies and fruit sorted, there will be less space and fewer cravings for junk and filler food, and everything else will fall into place.
Five serves of veggies seems so much! What even constitutes one serve? I figured other people might be thinking the same so if I record what I'm making/ eating it might help someone else.
Also, how much will this cost? Will my food budget go up or down? It's quite cheap to eat carby fillers but fruit & veg in season can be very cheap too, so we'll see... We currently spend up to $130 a week (Aussie food prices are high) excluding one meal out per week.
Disclaimer: We (myself and DH) did use to eat a lot more healthily because we used to get an organic box of fruit and veg delivered weekly that basically forced us to eat well. But it was really expensive and we have started to grow a few leafy greens ourselves, so I cancelled it. So we don't have that obstacle where we don't actually like veggies.
*Australian Government's Eat for Health website: https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/how-much-do-we-need-each-day/recommended-number-serves-adults
**http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/diet-and-cancer/how-healthy-eating-prevents-cancer
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Typically what I see defined as a "serving" is one cup of raw vegetables, half a cup cooked vegetables, two cups of leafy greens (measured raw), or an apple-sized amount of fruit.
It's really not that much.
Breakfast: eggs and stir-fried onions, red pepper, and green pepper (1 cup cooked vegetables; two "servings")
Lunch: baked chicken with 1lb steamed frozen broccoli/cauliflower mix (3-4 cups as measured raw, 3-4 "servings")
snack: 1/2 cup blueberries (1 "serving")
Dinner: big salmon salad with four cups of greens, a sliced avocado, red onion, shallot, and grated carrot (2 "servings" of greens, 1 "serving" of fruit in the avocado, 1 cup other vegetables)
There you go, eight servings of vegetables, two servings of fruit, and a very nutritious day.
It can be expensive if you're not careful, but it can also be very reasonable if you are careful. I have no idea what prices are like in Australia, but here in the US, the "cheapest healthiest" vegetables are usually cabbage, onion, carrots, and romaine lettuce. That doesn't mean you can't sometimes have arugula, asparagus, and organic raspberries, but that shit adds up if you have it all the time.
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Thanks Ketchup! Morning times I'm going to struggle timewise to cook anything so I'm going to have to squeeze the veggies into two meals.
I'm going to follow this - https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/food-essentials/how-much-do-we-need-each-day/serve-sizes
For veggies:
"A standard serve is about 75g (100–350kJ) or:
½ cup cooked green or orange vegetables (for example, broccoli, spinach, carrots or pumpkin)
½ cup cooked dried or canned beans, peas or lentils (preferably with no added salt)
1 cup green leafy or raw salad vegetables
½ cup sweet corn
½ medium potato or other starchy vegetables (sweet potato, taro or cassava)
1 medium tomato"
For fruit:
"A standard serve is about 150g (350kJ) or:
1 medium apple, banana, orange or pear
2 small apricots, kiwi fruits or plums
1 cup diced or canned fruit (no added sugar)
Or only occasionally:
125ml (½ cup) fruit juice (no added sugar)
30g dried fruit (for example, 4 dried apricot halves, 1½ tablespoons of sultanas)"
Today I've had oats with a few sultanas and a cheese sandwich, so.... I guess tonight's homemade pizza needs to be loaded. Hmm. I'm going to try for a tomato, 1/2 cup each of pumpkin and corn, about 1/2 cup kale/spinach on top, and a cup and a half of salad on the side. That's five. We normally make dinner plate size pizzas so to carry all that veg I'd better make the base thicker ;)
Ta da:
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Ketchup - I had to google arugula - we call it rocket here. I'm not a massive fan but it grows like a weed so easy to raise at home and add to salads or anything really. Just in small quantities..
Over here one of the big supermarkets does an 'odd bunch' range where they bag up the misshapen veg and sell it at very low prices. I think that plus usually seasonal veg (pears are less than $2 a kilo right now) will be key. We also have a carrot glut so they are about $1 a kilo. Unfortunately we haven't had any rain for weeks which will raise prices on most things. In a drought frozen veg will be the best bet and our water tanks are full :)
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I'm in! Thanks for starting the thread, Freshwater.
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For food budget, my total is <$200/mo and that includes fresh, local, seasonal fruit and veg in a quantity that I believe* is healthy.
* I haven't counted if it's 5+2
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Ketchup - I had to google arugula - we call it rocket here. I'm not a massive fan but it grows like a weed so easy to raise at home and add to salads or anything really. Just in small quantities..
Over here one of the big supermarkets does an 'odd bunch' range where they bag up the misshapen veg and sell it at very low prices. I think that plus usually seasonal veg (pears are less than $2 a kilo right now) will be key. We also have a carrot glut so they are about $1 a kilo. Unfortunately we haven't had any rain for weeks which will raise prices on most things. In a drought frozen veg will be the best bet and our water tanks are full :)
Arugula is very hip and trendy over here right now and it's priced accordingly which was why I mentioned it. If you can grow it that easily at home, more power to you.
"Odd bunch" and in-season produce definitely sounds like the way to go! I don't have an "odd bunch" equivalent over here, but buying in-season makes a big difference. It's cheaper and tastes better. In-season berries in particular are wonderful.
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I'm in! Thanks for starting the thread, Freshwater.
Hooroo!
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For food budget, my total is <$200/mo and that includes fresh, local, seasonal fruit and veg in a quantity that I believe* is healthy.
* I haven't counted if it's 5+2
Nice food spend - is that for a couple? I'm just in the middle of analysing our expenses for the last fin year. I don't actually know what we spend right now, it was $140 ish a week with the $40 veggie box during the first 6 months. When I'm working on being frugal I think it's $100 ish so still double yours :) Coffee beans at about $20 a month doesn't help.
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So yesterday's pizza was delish (lots of veg combined with anchovies, mmm) but I couldn't eat it all, so I guess I didn't get my five serves after all. That's a lesson for next time - beware the carb to veg ratio. It would be easy to adapt for pasta dishes but on a pizza, I guess one more serve of veg needs to be pilled on - I think onion.
So yesterday I had about 4 serves of veg and 1 serve of fruit (half a pear and some sultanas). Good start.
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Freshwater, that is for 1 person. The pizza looked so yummy and onion is a good tasty way to pile it on without bulk.
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Freshwater, that is for 1 person. The pizza looked so yummy and onion is a good tasty way to pile it on without bulk.
Thanks!
What to shop for in Sydney right now
Carrots are still $1/ kg, and at Woolies so was Kent pumpkin. Sweet potato was on sale but was still $5/kg, that seems a lot when pumpkin is orange and sweet and only $1/kg. Truss tomatoes were on sale so got some of those too. Fruit wise, pears and mandarins are looking quite cheap still. The pears are $2.90/kg and mangoes are coming into season and are $2.50. I'll wait til they have some "tray for $10" deal at Harris farms before I buy though. Australian asparagus has arrived and I can't pass on that to go with tonight's bbq steak. Berries are on special but I never shell out for them fresh. I also scored a bag of marked down spinach for $1.50 in lieu of salad leaves but it will need eating fast.
The oddbunch fruit and veg at Woolies wasn't that great today because (unless I was reading the signs wrong) the price/kg looked the same for pears and tomatoes. Anyway I got apples and zucchini.
All up, I got $19 worth of fruit & veg and about 30-35 serves of veg and 10 of fruit maybe? We'll see how we go.
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Avocados are a tricky one. What's a serve? And do we count it as a veggie or a fruit? I use it instead of butter, confusing.
This resource says one half counts as 2 whole serves of veg!
http://australianavocados.com.au/the-daily-spread/health-nutrition/australia’s-dietary-guidelines-–-avocados-front-and-centre
Good to know.
Today's result: 5 veg and 1 fruit
- Lunch was a pastrami roll with avo, beetroot slices and half a cup of salad. So about one veg serve in total.
- Dinner was steak with spinach/ salad leaves, asparagus, pumpkin & beetroot. Four serves of veg by my estimate.
- Afternoon snack was half an apple and the other half we've baked on the bbq with butter and cinnamon for dessert. I can't manage a whole apple in one go, the 2 fruit servings are hard!
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Breakfast smoothie is an easy way to get more fruit. Slice banana and freeze ( store in ziploc bag after freezing so its free-flow) add to milk , yoghurt and 1/2 cup of frozen berries . A quick blast with stick blender and you are ready to go.
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Breakfast smoothie is an easy way to get more fruit. Slice banana and freeze ( store in ziploc bag after freezing so its free-flow) add to milk , yoghurt and 1/2 cup of frozen berries . A quick blast with stick blender and you are ready to go.
Thanks! I can't eat raw banana (gives me a headache - I know, weird) but I could put some avo in there.
I was also thinking of trying to dice half an apple the evening before and putting it in my morning oats.
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Good thread!
I started using "Dr Greger's Daily Dozen" app (both android & apple) as a 'checklist' for my daily intake. So good! Definitely recommend it!
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Five serves of veggies seems so much!
Don't sweat it!
The research shows that you get almost all of the health benefits from the first four items (e.g. three vegetables plus one fruit):
(http://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/349/bmj.g4490/F3.medium.gif)
From the British Medical Journal:
Fruit and vegetable consumption and mortality from all causes (http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g4490)
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Make a fist, that generally is the size of a serving of anything. Get a Nutribullet, on sale at David Jones atm, you can add whatever you want to it, it uses up older veggies and you don’t lose anything, better than a juicer.
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Good thread!
I started using "Dr Greger's Daily Dozen" app (both android & apple) as a 'checklist' for my daily intake. So good! Definitely recommend it!
I checked out the app but I need to read the book I think to understand the inclusions, I'm sure it would be interesting. I don't think I've ever eaten flaxseed. And why the Vit D supplement? I have blood tests that show I'm not deficient.
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Five serves of veggies seems so much!
The research shows that you get almost all of the health benefits from the first four items
Aw.. you ruined my gauntlet ;)
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Make a fist, that generally is the size of a serving of anything. Get a Nutribullet, on sale at David Jones atm, you can add whatever you want to it, it uses up older veggies and you don’t lose anything, better than a juicer.
I don't think I need another gadget and I like the texture of veggies tho? Thanks anyway.
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Today's result: 6 veg and 1.33 fruit. Getting there.
I weighed my apples and they are 200g, but a serve is only 150g. Boom.
Morning snack: Half an apple
Lunch: Pastrami roll with 1/4 of an avo, a cup of spinach and beetroot slices (2 veg serves) followed by half an apple.
Dinner: Hot smoked trout with mashed potato, spinach, avo and tomato. Dinner was supposed to be a sort of nicoise salad but I didn't know we were out of potatoes. We had emergency frozen mash tho! (4 serves of veg)
Had ice cream instead of fruit for dessert :)
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Hey Freshwater,
Have you considered smoothies? I luckily live near a big discount grocer in Qld, that often has bulk sales on in-season stuff (like bananas 40c/kilo, kiwi 10c each, crazy cheap) - anytime spinach, kale, carrot, cucumber, banana, mango or other fruit is super cheap, I buy, chop and freeze in sandwich bags (chop cucumber small) - we have daily smoothies for breakfast - this morning I had banana, kale, cucumber and strawberry (with a scoop of protein powder, a blended weetbix and soy milk) - equivalent of two fruit and a veggie, filling, fast, cheap and delicious! You can add in a bit of honey if needed. But use a good blender, nothing worse than lumps of kale in your drink............
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Hey Freshwater,
Have you considered smoothies? I luckily live near a big discount grocer in Qld, that often has bulk sales on in-season stuff (like bananas 40c/kilo, kiwi 10c each, crazy cheap) - anytime spinach, kale, carrot, cucumber, banana, mango or other fruit is super cheap, I buy, chop and freeze in sandwich bags (chop cucumber small) - we have daily smoothies for breakfast - this morning I had banana, kale, cucumber and strawberry (with a scoop of protein powder, a blended weetbix and soy milk) - equivalent of two fruit and a veggie, filling, fast, cheap and delicious! You can add in a bit of honey if needed. But use a good blender, nothing worse than lumps of kale in your drink............
I'm going to try Harris Farm markets to see what they have in the odd picks section and how cheap it is. And then there's a new fruitmarket opened up nearby so I'm going to check in there too. Somewhere I will find some good deals on fruit in bulk and then do what you do. I really like the chunks tho so I will put it on my coconut oats.
Yesterday: 4 serves of veg and 2 serves of fruit
I got there with the fruit (had very old frozen berries on oats) but then the veg went a bit wrong. I had 3 serves in a lunch omelette so that went well, but then I undercatered the veg for dinner's enchiladas. There was probably 4 serves of veg but spread across 8 enchiladas. I should have squished in more and got more salad to have on the side.
Today we will have leftover enchiladas but with roasted pumpkin and peas, corn and whatever else from the freezer to bulk up the veg. Fruit is not happening today so tomorrow I'm going out to get frozen berries and maybe kiwi fruit so I have a few more interesting options than apples, apples, apples. My pears from the weekend shop are not ripe yet. I'm going to get more salad leaves too because that is a simple way to add a serve without extra work.
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Good thread!
I started using "Dr Greger's Daily Dozen" app (both android & apple) as a 'checklist' for my daily intake. So good! Definitely recommend it!
I checked out the app but I need to read the book I think to understand the inclusions, I'm sure it would be interesting. I don't think I've ever eaten flaxseed. And why the Vit D supplement? I have blood tests that show I'm not deficient
I don't take a Vit D supplement (or B12) so I just never tick off those guys on the checklist.
There's a few summaries out there on his Daily Dozen, which I'd recommend. He's really into cruciferous vegetables, for their health benefits, hence why they get their own place in the checklist!
I add flaxseed meal (or LSA) to my breakfast cereal. Or yoghurt for dessert + flaxseed is delicious.
Friday: 5×veg + 3× fruit
Breakfast: cereal (maybe I should add banana or berries to this to make it healthier)
Lunch: quinoa, chicken, tomato, broccoli & green beans.
Snacks: Banana & mandarin
Dinner: quinoa, roast sweet potato, peppers, onions, kaleslaw, & baby spinach.
Dessert: greek yoghurt + strawberries
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I'd like you to elaborate on why fruit is necessary and what life value it provides other than the pleasure of consuming sugar which doesn't benefit the body.
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I'd like you to elaborate on why fruit is necessary and what life value it provides other than the pleasure of consuming sugar which doesn't benefit the body.
Hi, I'm just following the Aussie food guidelines, see link above. I'm not a food scientist myself.
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This thread has been in the back of my mind while I'm meal planning, and I appear to have increased my vege intake. Woo!
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I'd like you to elaborate on why fruit is necessary and what life value it provides other than the pleasure of consuming sugar which doesn't benefit the body.
Hi, I'm just following the Aussie food guidelines, see link above. I'm not a food scientist myself.
If Aussie food guidelines are anything like the US. They are made by an incorrect organization. In the us they are made by the Dept of agriculture not the surgeon general or health Dept.
Long story short do some research online fruit is full of sugar your body doesn't need and you can get all the nutrition your body needs from veggies usually in higher quantity per serving.
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This thread has been in the back of my mind while I'm meal planning, and I appear to have increased my vege intake. Woo!
That's great! I had a bit of a rubbish Friday and seemed to eat a lot of biscuits but I'm on track overall and thinking more about nutrition.
My key takeaway after a week has been: it's hard to max out the veg when you're having a carb based meal eg risotto (Weds) and spaghetti bolognese (Thurs). In those cases the easiest thing to do is have a small portion of what you've made and a big side of salad.
However, having salad all week can mean more frequent trips to the shops and a higher spend overall, so I'm going to try to have a steady supply of young, green leaves in the garden.
If I make meals based around a protein, it's a piece of cake to do the veg requirement.
I really am not hitting the 2 pieces of fruit so I'm going to have more veg and try to have lots of different colour veg in a meal to get all the nutrients. I've bought frozen berries for my morning oats and weekend smoothies tho!
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I'd like you to elaborate on why fruit is necessary and what life value it provides other than the pleasure of consuming sugar which doesn't benefit the body.
Hi, I'm just following the Aussie food guidelines, see link above. I'm not a food scientist myself.
If Aussie food guidelines are anything like the US. They are made by an incorrect organization. In the us they are made by the Dept of agriculture not the surgeon general or health Dept.
Long story short do some research online fruit is full of sugar your body doesn't need and you can get all the nutrition your body needs from veggies usually in higher quantity per serving.
Our are made by the health dept, thanks for your concern though. I think I'll keep a bit of sugar in my life or I might turn sour or bitter :)
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Thanks for your post. I have slid into less healthy eating now that my child is away college...not overeating, just eating a sandwich instead of a proper meal. It's funny that I find it much harder to be disciplined about healthy eating than healthy finances when it is probably more important for general happiness.
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I love gauntlets and I've had to shake up my normal diet, so even though I typically flake out - I'm in! I've found chickpea patties make a nice snack from the fridge, not sure if chickpeas are "veg" or "protein" or both, but it's easy to add some frozen spinach and other veg when you make them. I have also started adding dried fruit to my morning porridge and used to add frozen berries. Er, are hash browns a veg serve? Guess I should probably bake a potato instead...
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This is a great simple switch :) I just finally joined weight watchers and my main reason for doing it over free calorie counting with my fitness pal was that they let you eat all the fruit and veg (most types anyway) with no dings! I'm still probably stretching their rules by nibbling on other stuff but being able to eat as much as I want in those categories is helpful mentally, plus it means I'm not just mainlining sugar from refined sources like I used to be for snacks and meals! My office is filled with all sorts of processed and baked goods so trying to keep fruit and carrots around helps.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Today's plan: lunch will include a whole tomato and whole avocado (both sliced in some kind of sandwich); dinner will include two cups of cooked veges (enchiladas!). Not quite enough, I will need to eat some carrot sticks for a snack too I think :-)
Note: because I don't really love fruit, I sometimes count things that are technically fruit but we consider veges, as fruit (like tomatoes!).
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Hello Dee, AV and Norabird!
Dee - I do toast if I'm on my own, which is not great. This week when it was just me because of this gauntlet I did a pumpkin risotto! It also meant I had leftovers for lunch the next day, so double win.
AV - I think chick peas count in the peas and beans section, so half a cup is a serve. I was so pleased to see lentils counted as veg as I eat them once of twice a week and usually think of them as meat substitute or a filler. I also put sultanas on my porridge but find it a bit sweet if I have a 'serving' of dried fruit so I'm going to do frozen more often.
Norabird - good luck with the weight loss! I'm also trying to fill myself with fresh goodies to stop myself craving biscuits/ chocolate.
Today's plan: lunch will include a whole tomato and whole avocado (both sliced in some kind of sandwich); dinner will include two cups of cooked veges (enchiladas!). Not quite enough, I will need to eat some carrot sticks for a snack too I think :-)
Note: because I don't really love fruit, I sometimes count things that are technically fruit but we consider veges, as fruit (like tomatoes!).
Yep I think I might go the tomato = fruit route too for my second piece. I like snacking on a whole tomato - I bite a hole and then suck out the seeds and then munch the rest. Not something you can do in company!
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Today's meal prep task is chopping carrots for snacking and steaming, roasting mushrooms and stewing apples for the next few days. I would put it off and then they'd all go icky, but since this thread popped up in my feed I realised I can get it done today!
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In fact, HaH, thinking about it - since a lot of veg are technically fruit we can insert lots of alternatives - avo, eggplant, pumpkin?
New secondary goal: Eat a rainbow!
http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/eat-rainbow
The link says that to get the nutrients we need we should try to eat a range of colours in our fruit and veg.
I'd say green and orange are easy for me as all my favourites are there. The purple is the hardest as beetroot and red cabbage don't go with every meal (and they turn a slow cooker meal all purple!) so you're relying on berries there. There's purple kale I guess, I could plant some...
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Today's meal prep task is chopping carrots for snacking and steaming, roasting mushrooms and stewing apples for the next few days. I would put it off and then they'd all go icky, but since this thread popped up in my feed I realised I can get it done today!
I fucking hate mushrooms. But stewed apple, delish, what a great idea for puddings! Sometimes I slice an apple and bake it for 20min. If I'm feeling fancy I'll add butter and cinnamon and an oaty topping.
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Today's meal prep task is chopping carrots for snacking and steaming, roasting mushrooms and stewing apples for the next few days. I would put it off and then they'd all go icky, but since this thread popped up in my feed I realised I can get it done today!
I fucking hate mushrooms. But stewed apple, delish, what a great idea for puddings! Sometimes I slice an apple and bake it for 20min. If I'm feeling fancy I'll add butter and cinnamon and an oaty topping.
Oooh, I need more details! Or a photo. Is it really as simple as chop & bake? Because that is my kind of cooking for sure. For the oaty topping, is it oats + butter + cinnamon mixed and spread over the apples? I ought to make Apple cake/ muffins too...
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I will do it and put a photo up :)
Yesterday we had people over so today is about leftovers so nothing is wasted and less about counting serves. There is half a jug of Pimm's with fruit floating it tho. Alcohol soaked fruit for the win!
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Thanks Freshwater! Apples are pretty cheap but I'm not great at eating them raw, so easy cooking ideas are great.
Carrots are chopped and apples are cooking :D
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just jumping in because this gauntlet is exactly what I have been trying to do for improving health.
Yesterday -
blueberries in the pancakes
split pea soup with carrots, onion and celery
pear
2 cups of deep purple grapes from Niagara - not sure what type they were. The colour was amazing.
salad rolls with spinach, kale, cilantro, carrot, red pepper, and stir fry with bok choi, onions, roasted red pepper - 1.5 c of cooked veg in total.
Non GMO popcorn
Peanuts
So how do the pulses work into the calculations? While high in fiber, and nutrients they are also high in protein and carbs.
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Thanks Freshwater! Apples are pretty cheap but I'm not great at eating them raw, so easy cooking ideas are great.
Carrots are chopped and apples are cooking :D
OK so we're good at prep, but I'm not so good at eating. I ate 2 kinds of fruit (sultanas with oats, banana in pancakes) which I think might have been 1 serve fruit based on the quantity. 2 potato hash browns for lunch - maybe 1 vegetable serve? Hoping to do a lot better tomorrow. Dried fruit with breakfast oats (1 fruit); carrots & hommus for morning tea (2 veg); lettuce with eggs and hash browns for lunch (2 veg); banana pancakes for afternoon tea (1 fruit); Steamed peas/ carrots/ broccoli with meat for dinner (3 veg). That makes an optimistic plan for 2 fruit and 7 veg, but I probably won't manage enough quantity for that.
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I'm going to guess strawberry jam does not count towards my fruit intake... Time to make my lunch salad :)
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I'm going to guess strawberry jam does not count towards my fruit intake... Time to make my lunch salad :)
Well it kind of does if it's made from strawberries but yeah, not a healthy way to take it! Yummy tho.
I haven't forgotten about the apple photo :)
Today all I've had so far is about half a cup of salad (1/2 a serve) on my chicken sandwich and about half an apple (it made me feel sick!). I'm planning a lentil bake for dinner which will sort it. Will probably do baked apple then for pudding. I don't like to put the oven on just to bake an apple so tonight's the night.
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Ok AV, here's the apple.
I quartered one large apple, removed the core and then sliced it. Then I put the slices into two ramekins on a baking tray (to make it easier to put in the oven). In the past I've spread the slices on baking paper but this is a no waste version :) I bake them for about 15-20 mins at 180-200. Sometimes they are underdone but I don't mind that.
I couldn't add the pictures in the right order, but I've tried to show increasing levels of fancy that I do depending on whether I can be bothered.
Bottom right is plain. Top left I've added a small knob of butter and some cinamon. If I'm really going for it, I mix about a heaped tbsp of oats with some cinnamon and a teaspoon of brown sugar and sprinkle it over. It doesn't go proper crumble topping but it's good. It's nice served with a blob of yoghurt on top but tonight we've got icecream!
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Thanks Freshwater, that's exactly what I needed! I have some pears I'll try it with. It looks delicious.
Today is going well in terms of variety! Applesauce & sultanas on breakfast, morning tea was a couple of banana & coconut pikelets with strawberry jam. Lunch is steamed broccoli and carrots (we're out of peas!) and a hash brown. That makes 3 fruit, 3 veg for my variety score- I suspect my volume score is around 1.5 fruit and 2 veg.
This might actually be the most fun gauntlet I've done, oddly enough. I'm enjoying being creative with my food.
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Thanks Freshwater, that's exactly what I needed! I have some pears I'll try it with. It looks delicious.
Today is going well in terms of variety! Applesauce & sultanas on breakfast, morning tea was a couple of banana & coconut pikelets with strawberry jam. Lunch is steamed broccoli and carrots (we're out of peas!) and a hash brown. That makes 3 fruit, 3 veg for my variety score- I suspect my volume score is around 1.5 fruit and 2 veg.
This might actually be the most fun gauntlet I've done, oddly enough. I'm enjoying being creative with my food.
Same. One of my favourite things is making up a dinner when it looks like we have nothing to eat.
Is the applesauce the stewed apple you made? What do you do - just chop and cook down with water or do you add anything? I'm thinking I can do it for my oats as well. Not fruit related, but one of my favourite things on oats is sunflower seeds, I like the crunch.
I managed to eat a rainbow yesterday, and since today's dinner is leftovers, I will eat one today too. I only just scraped by on the purple because there happens to be shredded red cabbage in a bag of salad that DH got for his work sandwiches and brought home. If I'd remembered I could have put berries in the apple crumble. Serving wise I did 2 fruit, and 5 veg just about if you count handfuls of cocoa popcorn and falafel chips :)
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Freshwater, yup that was the stewed apples. DH was making it for the baby. Peeled & chopped up apple, cooked in water until mushy. Then we scooped the apple pieces out with a slotted spoon, and put them in the blender. I was going to leave some in chunks for myself, but they were so soft we blended all of it. I think we did 1kg of granny smith. You could definitely add spices to it for a slightly different flavour.
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Thanks to this thread I sliced a couple of carrots and a giant red capsicum today and munched my way through them while hanging out with a friend.
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Thanks to this thread I sliced a couple of carrots and a giant red capsicum today and munched my way through them while hanging out with a friend.
I'm also finding this thread a great reminder!
I have had apple + sultanas on my oats every morning. Success! I've also had spinach with lunch & dinner the last few days. Apparently I was too ambitious in my goals, but this is an improvement. Tomorrow I have banana & pear to eat, and will be roasting sweet potato and carrot "fries" to go with my egg at lunch.
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Well done you two! I fell off the wagon in the second half of the week. Combine that with a very unsuccessful meal out last night (not my choice, it cost too much and I got sick) and I am back on it.
Even when I wasn't eating enough veg, I will say that this thread made sure I had some salad leaves handy that I could throw in a uninspired sandwich and onto the dinner plate. That wouldn't have happened two weeks ago.
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Well, I tried hard to have fruit for breakfast yesterday - I was trying pear and banana. The banana tasted underripe (despite the skin going brown and it having been on the bench all week) and so did the pear! Then it occurred to me I should probably check what's actually in season before I go shopping today. At any rate, I'll cook up the pears and banana so they don't go to waste.
Today's bulk cooking tasks to set us up for the week:
- Bake pear crumble (hopefully it tastes fine with olive oil instead of butter)
- Steam carrots and broccoli
- Blend hommus
- Fry up some chickpea & spinach patties
- Banana bread/pancakes
That should give us a fruit & veggie heavy start to the week. Fingers crossed I get through it all.
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Pears don't travel well when ripe so I think they are pretty much sold rock hard everywhere and you need to wait a week. They do still seem quite cheap in the supermarket.
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Pears don't travel well when ripe so I think they are pretty much sold rock hard everywhere and you need to wait a week. They do still seem quite cheap in the supermarket.
I had left them for a week - seems some were good, and some still hard. I picked the wrong one.
Today's bulk cooking tasks to set us up for the week:
- Bake pear crumble (hopefully it tastes fine with olive oil instead of butter)done
- Steam carrots and broccoli
- Blend hommusdone
- Fry up some chickpea & spinach pattiesdone, and delicious!
- Banana bread/pancakes
That should give us a fruit & veggie heavy start to the week. Fingers crossed I get through it all.
I've also:
- grocery shopped, keeping in mind to focus on fruit & veg. DH picked up some pricey mangoes and avocados. If this means he eats fruit & veg, I don't mind at all!
- washed the lettuce for the week.
I'm feeling on top of things, but I think I need to make more hommus & chickpea patties during a cooking session to properly cut down on effort in the kitchen. Still, very good compared to where we have been :D
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DH just ate 1/3 of the pear crumble by himself. I'm calling that a success!
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So far today:
Breakfast: Pear crumble on my porridge (1 fruit)
Morning tea: 3 chickpea fritters/patties (1 veg)
Lunch: 1 chicken & salad bun plus a hash brown(3 veg)
I'm very impressed with my veg intake today. Not sure what afternoon tea or dinner are going to be yet, but I'm sure it will be yummy!
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Thank you for the inspiration!! I am stepping up my veggie and fruit intake starting immediately!
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How is everyone doing? Got any tasty recipes to share, or changes you've made to your normal eating patterns?
I saw my dietician again yesterday and she was impressed with my veg intake (4 veg! 1 fruit! Every day!) My biggest wins were cooking up a load of easy veggie options at the start of the week for easy reheating, that could be eaten with several different meals (steamed veg, chickpea & spinach fritters). I used the steamed veg in buns with chicken/steak and omelette. I'm looking forward to all the delicious vegetables I'm going to buy tomorrow for the next bulk cook up :D
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Ooh count me in.
I need to get back into the habit of preparing my fruit and veggies ahead of time. The only thing I'm diligent about is slicing and freezing bananas.
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I'm part of the local farmers CSA. Normally, I go to the CSA market each week and pick the standard veggies and fruit my family likes most. I was double-booked this week, so I asked my dad to go instead. He got all kinds of things I wouldn't normally get, and now I'm excited! I turned the big bunch of kale he picked up into kale chips last night for my work snack. Tonight, I have to decide what to do with a bunch of eggplant and a lonely turnip..... Open to suggestions!
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I'm in. I do well when I track my fruit & veggies, as it does cut out the room in my diet for carbs &/or unnecessary snacks. We have free fruit & veggies at work, so my goal is to fill up there, to reduce costs in our grocery budget. I'll eat at home on weekends. :-)
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I'm part of the local farmers CSA. Normally, I go to the CSA market each week and pick the standard veggies and fruit my family likes most. I was double-booked this week, so I asked my dad to go instead. He got all kinds of things I wouldn't normally get, and now I'm excited! I turned the big bunch of kale he picked up into kale chips last night for my work snack. Tonight, I have to decide what to do with a bunch of eggplant and a lonely turnip..... Open to suggestions!
I need eggplant ideas too! I have two decent sized eggplants still on the plant - weather has been mild, and they're close to the house, so I'm hoping that they aren't totally frostbitten! But complicating factors in choosing a recipe is a) I won't know if they're too old or frostbitten to be good until I cut into them and b) there's just one of me so I need to be able to freeze some. I don't like eggplant quite enough to eat it all day every day for the next week! :-P
Off to search recipes, will post back...
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So I was awol there for a while but I'm back...!
I've had some not good days during the week but the bag of salad leaves has been excellent in keeping the veg intake up or in existence at all some days. I also bought a tub of coleslaw - not fabulously healthy but a tasty way to easily add half a cup of cabbage, onion and carrot to a meal.
This weekend I finally got the stick blender out and made a berry & weetbix smoothie for breakfast. Saturday lunch was a coleslaw sandwich (try it!) and avo/ricotta sandwich and dinner was a Thai beef stir fry with lots of veg. Last night's dinner was a tuna nicoise salad (salad leaves, green beans, coleslaw, egg, tuna & bread).
Today so far I've had half a cup of blueberries on my oats and a coleslaw sandwich (seriously, try it!). It's unclear what is for dinner as I haven't made it to the supermarket for a proper shop in a while and I'm working late. Worst case scenario - egg and beans on toast, which is not actually that bad veg wise.
I saw on my Coles emails that pumpkin is still at rock bottom prices in Sydney. Lucky it's tasty! Brocolli is also cheap.
On Friday I tried out the imperfect picks section at Harris Farm Markets (not sure if it's a national chain). The prices were great, I got pears, onions and zucchini for about 1/3 off. The only problem is that you have to use a green plastic bag to differentiate what you have. I put all the things in one bag but I'll have to check (when I'm not in a rush) what the deal is if I don't want to use bags. It is good that they don't package them up in plastic wrap like Woolies and Coles though, and I can always use the bag for doggie pick up.
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Did good this week (not great) but started most days with a salad for breakfast (2 veggie servings) and ended each day with a bowl of fruit (2 fruit servings). In addition, I made kale chips Thursday night to snack on at work on Friday, made delicious eggplant parmesan type thingy (pan fried eggplant with panko breadcrumb and shredded parmesan cheese and served it with marinara sauce, fresh mozzarella and pesto... So yummy...) on Saturday, and had veggie pizza on Sunday. I think I got 4 veggie and 2 fruit servings each day. Still room for progress!
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My weekend was a bit rubbish. We did a big shop yesterday, though, so my morning is going to be spent preparing food. Washing salad, chopping some veg and cooking up some apple & pear crumble for breakfasts.
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Made a double batch of Apple & pear crumble so that we have enough for both our breakfasts this week. I would never have thought of it as an addition to my morning oats except for this thread!
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Made a double batch of Apple & pear crumble so that we have enough for both our breakfasts this week. I would never have thought of it as an addition to my morning oats except for this thread!
Are you making crumble with a traditional crumble topping or a quick cheat like my one I described? It sounds like a great breakfast.
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Made a double batch of Apple & pear crumble so that we have enough for both our breakfasts this week. I would never have thought of it as an addition to my morning oats except for this thread!
Are you making crumble with a traditional crumble topping or a quick cheat like my one I described? It sounds like a great breakfast.
A sort of traditional topping - I used this recipe, because it's easier for me to make a big batch than cut up a piece of fruit every morning:
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/apple-pear-crumble/ce7638d0-60d4-48e2-b9cf-bbb6645da329
I sub olive oil for the butter, brown sugar for the vanillin sugar and skipped the maple syrup this week. Delicious!
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Made a double batch of Apple & pear crumble so that we have enough for both our breakfasts this week. I would never have thought of it as an addition to my morning oats except for this thread!
Are you making crumble with a traditional crumble topping or a quick cheat like my one I described? It sounds like a great breakfast.
A sort of traditional topping - I used this recipe, because it's easier for me to make a big batch than cut up a piece of fruit every morning:
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/apple-pear-crumble/ce7638d0-60d4-48e2-b9cf-bbb6645da329
I sub olive oil for the butter, brown sugar for the vanillin sugar and skipped the maple syrup this week. Delicious!
That looks great. I would definitely skip the syrup if I was having it for breakfast. And probably for pudding too, come to think of it because I'd use sweet apples and ripe pears.
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I ended up with a horribly uncomfortable stomach (bloating, ugh) over the weekend, so I'm giving up bread this week to see if that makes a difference. If not, I'll reintroduce bread next week and go off dairy.
Either way, it ties in well with this challenge, so bring on the veggies.
Breakfast: spinach and cheese omelette, banana smoothie.
Lunch: chicken and broccoli.
Snack: banana, apple.
Dinner: no idea, have a work function.
Based on this list, I need to increase my intake of veggies over fruit. I should replace one piece of fruit with carrot sticks, and add veggies to my smoothie.
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I never ever weigh myself, but I did last week so I could weigh the dog by holding him. I'm 2kg heavier than I've ever known myself to be. That explains the tight jeans. I'm hoping that this thread (and giving up chocolate in front of the tv) will help 2-3kg fall away without too much thought and without more exercise. So far no change, if anything my jeans are tighter than when I started!
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I made this veggie lasagne yesterday.
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/pumpkin-spinach-lentil-lasagne/b156ffa7-dfa7-4dd9-a14a-4c76f1d6fedd
It's delish, even though I forgot to buy ricotta and used yoghurt. And used salad leaves instead of plain spinach. It's mainly lentils, pumpkin & tomato. Lentil based pasta dishes are a really good way to get the veggies up if you have mainly sauce & don't go to hard on the pasta itself. And lentils keep forever in the pantry so are always on hand.
I burnt it a bit but it's done me for lunch and dinner tonight as well.
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Oh my gosh FB, that's not burnt, it's perfectly caramelised!
I'm in, hoping that seeing this thread pop up will guilt me into eating more fruit and veggies.
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DH and I ate 1kg of apples & 1kg of pears this week - that's an impressive amount for us this year! I just blended some banana "ice-cream", which I'm hoping will be OK for dessert. I have a date caramel sauce recipe to try out too (yes sugar =/= healthy, but one step at a time!)
I've got spinach & chickpea fritters to cook up tonight - if this sounds repetitive, it's because it is! We've found repetition to be really useful at the moment. This time I'm making a bigger batch and will probably throw some broccoli in too, and then will freeze some of them. I'm actually really looking forward to seeing just what we need from the grocery store, because I'm confident we're mostly buying veggies!
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I made this veggie lasagne yesterday.
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/pumpkin-spinach-lentil-lasagne/b156ffa7-dfa7-4dd9-a14a-4c76f1d6fedd
It's delish, even though I forgot to buy ricotta and used yoghurt. And used salad leaves instead of plain spinach. It's mainly lentils, pumpkin & tomato. Lentil based pasta dishes are a really good way to get the veggies up if you have mainly sauce & don't go to hard on the pasta itself. And lentils keep forever in the pantry so are always on hand.
I burnt it a bit but it's done me for lunch and dinner tonight as well.
Marty and I can recommend this one too! I made it when he was here for dinner once.
Try it with the ricotta next time. So good.
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Good to see people going for this. For me, I cook for the family (wife, 6yo and 1yo), and it's always a pain trying to compromise between taste, what can be set aside for wife's work lunch, and what the kids will eat. So I try to sort myself out during the day.
For lunch I'll have a piece of steak, fish or chicken, and with it two cups of frozen mixed vegies - that's 4 serves of vegies. As a male I'm supposed to get 6 but it's 2/3 of the way there, at least, so long as we have vegies at dinner I should be fine - and dinner is often a pasta sauce with diced tomato as its base, or a curry with vegies in it, so another 1 cup of vegies should get into me somehow.
As for the fruit, for five days a week at 4pm I'm into the garage (gym business), I take two pieces then as an afternoon snack, and to keep me going until dinner at 6pm.
With that approach, on 5 days a week I hit the targets, and 5/7 is 72% which is a pass mark, right? Usually the fruit is an easier target for me to hit than the vegies, even on the non-garage days because I don't have to be creative with recipes.
Once I hit my 40s my digestion slowed down, I'd get reflux from time to time. Focusing on the fruit and vegies seems to make things flow through better, so to speak.
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I made this veggie lasagne yesterday.
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/pumpkin-spinach-lentil-lasagne/b156ffa7-dfa7-4dd9-a14a-4c76f1d6fedd
It's delish, even though I forgot to buy ricotta and used yoghurt. And used salad leaves instead of plain spinach. It's mainly lentils, pumpkin & tomato. Lentil based pasta dishes are a really good way to get the veggies up if you have mainly sauce & don't go to hard on the pasta itself. And lentils keep forever in the pantry so are always on hand.
I burnt it a bit but it's done me for lunch and dinner tonight as well.
Marty and I can recommend this one too! I made it when he was here for dinner once.
Try it with the ricotta next time. So good.
+1, her pumpkin spinach dish was delish!
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Lunch today was a wrap with chickpeas, spinach, lettuce & chicken. 3 veg down! Because of this challenge, we could walk to the local IGA & butchers instead of having to go to the big supermarket - such a more pleasant way to spend our weekend.
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Nice one AV. I've had one and a bit veg so far - avo & scrambled egg w onion.
I have had that lasagne above with the proper ingredients before, it's v tasty. Hubby didn't realise til halfway through on Thurs that it had no meat in! I bought some ricotta & pasatta today so I'll repeat this in the week. If I chop the veg in the morning it's not too bad to put together on a week night.
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Nice one AV. I've had one and a bit veg so far - avo & scrambled egg w onion.
I have had that lasagne above with the proper ingredients before, it's v tasty. Hubby didn't realise til halfway through on Thurs that it had no meat in! I bought some ricotta & pasatta today so I'll repeat this in the week. If I chop the veg in the morning it's not too bad to put together on a week night.
I was a bit tempted not to tell husband about the lentils till after he'd eaten and enjoyed it, but he was surprisingly open to it, and loved the final product.
Do you saute the onion before adding it to your eggs?
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Do you saute the onion before adding it to your eggs?
Would normally but this was spring onion (shallots?)
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I fall totally off track when I travel for work. It's hard to get enough fresh fruit & vegetables, and the airport/plane meals don't make this easy. I had two 30 hour travel days (San Francisco to Singapore, through various other airports on the way), & everything just falls apart when I'm traveling for work. But, I'm back now & ready to recharge my healthier eating.
I also need to find a way to sort this for future work trips, as I have two more international trips on the horizon. :-(
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I've been bad at this too but without a good reason! I think I am too used to not buying fruit and veg and then when I do and eat it all it's like this extra chore? I've completely fallen off the weight watchers wagon, too, sigh...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I'm having a lot of success with eating the same thing every week. We've got almost no food waste this week and my fridge is pretty bare, but the plenty to eat because it's already cooked up and tomorrow is grocery day. Apparently I don't need a lot of variety, but I do need my food to be completely prepared to eat (out just chuck on to cook) before Monday morning.
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I am more a veggie person than a fruit person. I do like Bananas however and softer fruit so Every day I make for the family a huge tossed salad with loads of different Veggies and a Fruit Salad. The base of my fruit salad is always a can of Chunked pineapple with the juice since its good for you and mandarin oranges without the juice since not so good for you. Then i mix in what ever is on sale. Lately its been a mix of green and red grapes. The kids wolf the salads and the fruit salad down and i scoop out the fruit, toss yogurt on it and that helps me get the fruit.
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The weekend wasn't a huge success, but we did manage to eat up the remains of the cooked vegetables yesterday and I got our grocery shopping done. Oh, we also managed to roast some veggies. The butternut pumpkin turned out so soft that I basically used it as a spread on my bread at dinner tonight, which was great with poached eggs and lettuce! I'm going to add a little bit of caramelised onions tomorrow, which should be very delicious.
Strawberries were beautiful today, and it seems like nectarines are back in the shops - one of my favourite fruits!
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I made this veggie lasagne yesterday.
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/pumpkin-spinach-lentil-lasagne/b156ffa7-dfa7-4dd9-a14a-4c76f1d6fedd
It's delish, even though I forgot to buy ricotta and used yoghurt. And used salad leaves instead of plain spinach. It's mainly lentils, pumpkin & tomato. Lentil based pasta dishes are a really good way to get the veggies up if you have mainly sauce & don't go to hard on the pasta itself. And lentils keep forever in the pantry so are always on hand.
I burnt it a bit but it's done me for lunch and dinner tonight as well.
Marty and I can recommend this one too! I made it when he was here for dinner once.
Try it with the ricotta next time. So good.
+1, her pumpkin spinach dish was delish!
Made this again yesterday, and brought a small portion for lunch today with a serve of broccoli.
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In the US, you can get 10 oz frozen fruit (blueberries, strawberries, mango, peaches) at Dollar Tree for $1. That is 3 servings.
This morning I had oatmeal with a bag of blueberries, ground flaxseed and chia seed and some walnuts.
This is in response to an old comment, but the Daily Dozen recommends B12 pills because it is assuming you are vegan. Although, for some reason (I don't know why) a large amount of older American meat eaters are deficient, also. Obviously, if you eat meat it is less important.
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Banana with breakfast; spinach, potato, cauliflower, broccoli and leek with lunch, and half a large punnet of strawberries about 30 seconds ago.
I don't think it would quite amount to a full "serve" of each but I'm loving the variety.
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I've got nectarines for me this week and apricots for DH. Patiently waiting for the price of cherries to drop as we approach Christmas.
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Mangoes are hitting the sweet price point now, Aldi has them at $1.75 or something each. I still haven't bought any and have been having a lot of frozen berries. I'm hoping our passionfruit in the garden will be ready soon, there's loads.
Tonight we had the lentil, pumpkin and ricotta lasagne AGAIN. I use kale instead of spinach because that's what we grow. It's good for lunch and dinner tomorrow too, so - winning.
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I had a crappy week last week, so didn't get to cook much or eat many veg. This week is off to a great start, though - we grocery shopped on Saturday so we had Sunday to prep food. Yesterday I stir fried onions and capsicum in the frypan after cooking steak, and the juices made it divine. I also bought some mini Turkish breads, which are delicious with some egg, spinach and caramelised onion!
The big tray of crumble is still working well for us, so this week I added pepitas to the crumble part for a little more nutrition.
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I've had a lot more time than usual to prepare, so I'm doing well. Also, it's pomegranate season, & I love the seeds! I eat them constantly, although they are not super frugal.
For tonight, I'm using up the Thanksgiving leftovers (turkey + roasted potatoes) & have added onions, celery & tomatoes to make a big pot of turkey soup. Will serve with salad. Yum!
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I've had a lot more time than usual to prepare, so I'm doing well. Also, it's pomegranate season, & I love the seeds! I eat them constantly, although they are not super frugal.
For tonight, I'm using up the Thanksgiving leftovers (turkey + roasted potatoes) & have added onions, celery & tomatoes to make a big pot of turkey soup. Will serve with salad. Yum!
You've reminded me that it's also approaching optimal pomelo season. Must start watching out for them in the flyers.
Interesting note - I don't like grapefruit, but I just found out that grapefruits are actually a cross between pomelos and naval oranges. Hmm! Weird, eh? Also, if you're supposed to avoid grapefruit because of the interaction with certain medications, then you should also avoid pomelos.
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That's so funny that you like pomelo but not grapefruit - they are interchangeable to me! But then again, we might get slightly different varieties.
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That's so funny that you like pomelo but not grapefruit - they are interchangeable to me! But then again, we might get slightly different varieties.
Maybe we do. Also, people do taste things differently - so for example, when I ate meat, I actually liked liver, which many people don't, and didn't particularly like chicken or turkey, which most people do. And before I became vegetarian, there were very few vegetables I liked - a fact which caused considerable concern to my mother when I first stopped eating meat! Though I've taught myself to like a lot more vegetables since then.
In this instance, I'm super sensitive to the bitterness of grapefruit - even a juice blend with only some grapefruit in it is usually not appealing. But I don't find pomelo to be bitter, as long as I peel the membranes off. Bonus of pomelo is that it takes quite a long time to pick it all apart, so I can sit on the couch watching TV, with half a pomelo on a plate, and it keeps my hands busy enough that I don't go searching for higher calorie/fat snack options!
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Today's dinner is steamed peas, carrot and broccoli, plus lettuce and hummus, in a wrap with chicken. Lunch was pretty similar. I'm not sure I ate enough volume, but the variety is there. Plus a glass of apple juice for fruit :)
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Just got back from a business trip, and definitely didn't do well at this. Need to recommit again. It's all too easy to eat unhealthy carb/fat/sugar healthy stuff while traveling.
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We've been doing super well at this challenge this week!! Most of our meals are batch cooked, so I have been measuring how many cups of veges go into each batch. We're averaging two or three serves of veges per meal! Yay!
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This challenge has been super helpful for me. Today instead of a breakfast sandwich I got a smoothie with berries and banana and had them add spinach and kale. My New Years resolution is going to be eat more veggies. I’ve also been roasting root veggies for lunch and then blending them with almond or hemp milk and nutritional yeast to make soup.
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We fell into survival mode (carbs) over the past 3 weeks due to illness. We did fit in some chicken soup, steamed veg, baked beans, and chopped melon. I'm looking forward to having the energy to remember we have fruit & veg and preparing it! The virus involved a sore throat so there wasn't a lot of food that was comfortable to eat.
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I've been terrible lately at my own challenge!! Life got in the way and we too were in survival mode. I guess that's why I needed to set it in the first place.
New year, new start.
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I've been sick for a week or so, as has my 11 year old. So, we've been eating lots of soups & comfort foods. It's forced me to eat better than normal this holiday, but still not as well as a planned week. I need to get back into this for 2018!
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We're getting back on track surprisingly quickly. I made spinach & chickpea fritters last night, we're putting chicken soup in the slow cooker while we're out of the house today and we've got lettuce to snack on. Yum.
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Doing well today. Had a pear with breakfast, as well as a cup of mixed greens, & 1/2 a diced pepper for lunch. I also cheated (in the Mustachian sense) & bought a bagged salad with fun mix ins. I normally resist salads, because I'm not great at making them to be terribly appealing at home. I'll try this & then work on making them more frugal with my own dressings, etc.
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Yep, it's totally unmustachian, but if you need to get veg in you with less obstacles, frozen or other chopped veg and prewashed salad leaves are the way to go.
Yesterday I had half a mango and one strawberry plus some sultanas. Veg wasn't so good - just a couple of cups of kale, spinach & lettuce.
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I also read Dr.Gregor's book "How Not To Die" and use his nutritionfacts website and app (not using it anymore since it's become habit to eat this way).
Great challenge.
One of the most mustachian and healthiest veggies I know is purple cabbage.
Grate it up and add on top of everything!
We froze a pile of kale this summer and dehydrated a bunch too...so that gets added to everything, including a handful tossed in when cooking rice.
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I've been getting five servings/day since the new year kicked off. 6 on several days. My goal is to continue this through the year. Note that it's 5 total, combined between fruit & veggies. Maybe in 2019 my goal will be to get up to the actual 7 recommended. :-)
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We had a bag of carrots in the fridge to use up, so I roasted the lot last night and am hoping to eat them with some eggs today. I had stopped having fruit on my morning porridge, so got that going again with some sultanas stirred in this morning. Watermelon made for a nice morning tea. I'm hoping to make a meal plan for next week to get my 5&2 since there's so much nice food in season.
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A meal plan, good idea! I really need to get back into it. I keep saying I'm going to have a better 2018, but a) haven't yet done a proper shop and b) have no plan on what to eat.
I did have yoghurt with a cheek of fresh mango (3 for $5 at Coles) for afternoon tea. I might buy another full tray of them while they are still cheap. Sunday is forecast to be 39 degrees so a great day for nibbling on raw veggies, salad and fruit.
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Can I join? Can I? Can I?
I try, and have been trying for years, to eat mainly plant based food, with reasonable but not perfect results. My big take-aways so far are -
If I eat a veg or fruit at breakfast time it gives me a head start on the rest of the day and I'm far more likely to meet the quota with less mental effort.
spi
In summer I eat a lot of salad. I need to start growing what I eat most - spinach for greens, spring onions, tomatoes. Lemons (I usually use a lemon juice and black pepper dressing) in the UK will be a bit of a stretch.
In winter I usually put a large tray of root vegetables (in season, cheap) in the oven and roast them with a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil. I then have a few days of a tasty side or ingredient (soups, sauces) ready to go.
This thread has told me one thing already: I tend to default too much to some favourite veggies and need to expand my repetoire. Each time I go shopping from now on there is going to have to be a "new to me this month" vegetable.
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This is on my to-do list when I start my new job and have a chance to get a new routine!
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Wow, what a great idea! I have a vegetarian under my roof right now, so this might be a perfect time to aim for a goal like this.
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Can I join? Can I? Can I?
I try, and have been trying for years, to eat mainly plant based food, with reasonable but not perfect results. My big take-aways so far are -
If I eat a veg or fruit at breakfast time it gives me a head start on the rest of the day and I'm far more likely to meet the quota with less mental effort.
spi
In summer I eat a lot of salad. I need to start growing what I eat most - spinach for greens, spring onions, tomatoes. Lemons (I usually use a lemon juice and black pepper dressing) in the UK will be a bit of a stretch.
In winter I usually put a large tray of root vegetables (in season, cheap) in the oven and roast them with a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil. I then have a few days of a tasty side or ingredient (soups, sauces) ready to go.
This thread has told me one thing already: I tend to default too much to some favourite veggies and need to expand my repetoire. Each time I go shopping from now on there is going to have to be a "new to me this month" vegetable.
Agreed--roasting piles of root vegetables is a great way to have them ready. I just use olive oil and some combo of rosemary, garlic,coriander (good herbs & spices are another easy way to add valuable nutrients)
Some days (like today), when I have slept in and am having a bigger pre-planned lunch--I will just eat a bunch of fruit, like 2 cut up oranges which I had in the fridge
We have drastically increased our veggie intake in the two years and feel great because of it. We try to make sure there is something green with each evening meal (even just a side of steamed bok choy, broccoli or spinach)
Travelling to Asia 2 years ago made a big switch in eating habits..the food was so flavorful and fresh. Mint was piled on top of salads, piles of herbs served with soups, etc. The places we visited used meat as flavoring..not the main course. A paradigm shift for N.Americans. We have been switching to more plant-based diet but still my SO enjoys certain dishes with meat/cheese..so he is charge of making those ones, and we only do 1-2/wk :)
Adjusting your taste buds to accomodate a broader range of flavours is also a skill worth developing! At first, bitter greens might seem harsh..but little by little your body begins craving them(believe me..for years I ate spaghetti with ketchup & parmesan)
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I want to join this challenge too. My NY resolution last year was to eat less meat and more beans. We're doing that but it would also be good to get more fruit/veg intake. Unfortunately, I drink quite a lot of fruit juice (one glass of OJ every morning with breakfast and sometimes a bit more juice later in the day) I guess this is not good but I love my morning OJ -either fresh squeezed or bottled.
Anyway - today:
Breakfast - muesli with raisins and other dried fruit in it - I'd say that's one serving of fruit (I also had my usual OJ but I won't count that)
Morning snack - apple and sandwich, some OJ
Lunch - string beans along with my lunch of fish cakes and bread
Afternoon snack - two mandarins, almonds
Husband is making pasta with gorgonzola sauce plus a big salad for dinner. I guess the salad might count for 2 servings of veg?
Dessert will probably be a banana
So that's 4 fruit and 3 veg in what is for me an average day. I guess I need to up the veg intake. I'm ok with fruit.
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Welcome new people!
A last, a win for us. We made 500g of beef mince last four portions instead of three by padding out with veg. I probably got 3 serves of veg n that meal, including side salad.
Hula hoop - one cup of salad is a serve so a big salad would be at least 2 serves.
I don't know what the advice is on fruit juice in the US but here it's a bit like soda, ie a treat, because you don't get enough of the fruit fibre along with the sugar. If you're not trying to lose weight and you like it though *shrugs*
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Thanks, Fresh Bread. I kind of think of the OJ like soda. Problem is that I'm kind of addicted to it in the morning. I'm not trying to lose weight though - actually I wouldn't mind gaining some weight. One of the reasons i joined this thread is that it concentrates on eating healthily not on losing weight or counting calories.
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Thanks, Fresh Bread. I kind of think of the OJ like soda. Problem is that I'm kind of addicted to it in the morning. I'm not trying to lose weight though - actually I wouldn't mind gaining some weight. One of the reasons i joined this thread is that it concentrates on eating healthily not on losing weight or counting calories.
Yeah it's a tough one. Maybe you can just limit yourself to a small glass and wean yourself off! You might find that if you up your sweet veg you might not crave it as much?
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Thanks, Fresh Bread. I kind of think of the OJ like soda. Problem is that I'm kind of addicted to it in the morning. I'm not trying to lose weight though - actually I wouldn't mind gaining some weight. One of the reasons i joined this thread is that it concentrates on eating healthily not on losing weight or counting calories.
Yeah it's a tough one. Maybe you can just limit yourself to a small glass and wean yourself off! You might find that if you up your sweet veg you might not crave it as much?
I don't see my OJ drinking as a problem. In fact there are people who buy juicers and juice all kinds of fruit and veg supposedly for 'health reasons' so one glass of juice a day is hardly akin to guzzling diet soda or smoking. Anyway, as I said, I'm trying to eat and drink more (healthy) calories rather than less as I've been losing weight lately and want to gain it back. I guess I'm unusual in that way - I find that these 'health' threads are often focused on consuming fewer calories rather than more. IMO a bit of juice here and there is a good way to stuff in more calories without getting too full.
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Ok no worries, it's just that you said up above that your OJ drinking wasn't good so I assumed you wanted to reduce it. You go right ahead! I like fruit juice too, I'm just too tight to buy it.
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Today started off well! Oats with little strawberries from the garden. Then lunch was pumpkin, zucchini and button squash zapped in the microwaved, cooled, and then added to avo, lettuce and feta cheese. So maybe 3 serves+ of veg and half a fruit. Then dinner, whoops, take away fish and chips because I got too tired, we were going to go out. Didn't even make a salad. I may redeem myself with some mango before bed.
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Chips are a veg! I'm having 3 serves of veg for dinner tonight - a tin of baked beans and chips :D
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Chips are a veg! I'm having 3 serves of veg for dinner tonight - a tin of baked beans and chips :D
You are quite right!! Therefore, I have had five veg, let's say 2 veg if you count the lemon in my G&T. Winning.
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Chips are a veg! I'm having 3 serves of veg for dinner tonight - a tin of baked beans and chips :D
Yum!
Since someone said above that onions count as a veg, I put some red onion on my ham and mayo sandwich at lunch and voila- a serving of veggies. That plus some cucumber and I've got 2 veg already.
So what about beans and lentils - those are veg too?
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Chips are a veg! I'm having 3 serves of veg for dinner tonight - a tin of baked beans and chips :D
Yum!
Since someone said above that onions count as a veg, I put some red onion on my ham and mayo sandwich at lunch and voila- a serving of veggies. That plus some cucumber and I've got 2 veg already.
So what about beans and lentils - those are veg too?
Yup, those are veg too. My tin of baked beans came in tomato sauce and said "2 serves of veg!" on the side :)
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You only need half a cup of beans or veg for a serve. Whereas raw salad veg you need a whole cup. I should remember to put lentils in my bolognaise.
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Really doing well at this for the last few days. Yay!
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Really doing well at this for the last few days. Yay!
Congrats!
I have been increasing greens..this gauntlet reminded me how many more I would like to add daily.
Grapefruits, pomengranate and oranges have been my recent fruit loves
&
big salads with roasted squash for lunch.
YUM
Also made a big veggie chili with onions, peppers, tomatoes--so that will be a bunch of meals for the next few days
If anyone is interested: A great resource for tasty-veggie focused meals is http://veganricha.com
You don't need to be vegan to love it, she does great flavour combos & spices..you could add meat if you eat it but her recipes are top-notch.
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Lately I've been getting into replacing pasta with spiralized noodles made from zucchinni or sweet potatoes in order to try and up my vegetable intake. I like the sweet potato ones best, in part because they lose less water during cooking. I find that a thick tomato sauce goes well with these veggie noodles.
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Lately I've been getting into replacing pasta with spiralized noodles made from zucchinni or sweet potatoes in order to try and up my vegetable intake. I like the sweet potato ones best, in part because they lose less water during cooking. I find that a thick tomato sauce goes well with these veggie noodles.
Ooh, yum! Do you just cook them as though they were pasta? I have a peeler that might create flat "noodles" for me...
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Lately I've been getting into replacing pasta with spiralized noodles made from zucchinni or sweet potatoes in order to try and up my vegetable intake. I like the sweet potato ones best, in part because they lose less water during cooking. I find that a thick tomato sauce goes well with these veggie noodles.
Ooh, yum! Do you just cook them as though they were pasta? I have a peeler that might create flat "noodles" for me...
Ages ago I bought this funny shaped peeler from a Vietnamese supermarket. This is what it does with the stub of a zucchini.
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I think it works best to sauté the veggies noodles instead of boiling them like regular pasta. You can cook them in a pan at the same time with mushrooms or other chopped vegetables, like a bell pepper, then add the sauce at the end. Have fun experimenting!
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Ok, back on the horse :)
Day before yesterday I made a cabbage and sausage stew in the slow cooker. It's so easy I should do it more. Ingredients are red cabbage, an apple, currant jelly (I used cranberry), balsamic & stock. And sausages. I added potatoes and probably got about 3 serves of veg and half a fruit.
Today's fruit is mango - I reckon one large mango is probably two serves?
This evening I'm going to try to stuff 8-10 serves into a chicken curry. I'm using shop bought sauce (sugar consumption will have to be a future challenge :/ ) so that I can focus on the veg. I've got carrot, pumpkin, red cabbage, egg plant, peas. A bit of an odd mix :) We'll be having it with rice.
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I'm not sure how many serves in a rockmelon, but it turns out I can eat at least 1/4 of one all on my own for a snack. I'll be buying more of that for next week!
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I'm not sure how many serves in a rockmelon, but it turns out I can eat at least 1/4 of one all on my own for a snack. I'll be buying more of that for next week!
Yum! I reckon there'd be at least 8 serves in a melon, maybe even 12? So you're nailing it!
Hubby came home and we did a joint effort on the curry. It's huge and I reckon there's 10 serves in it. Unfortunately we won't eat half each (it really is huge), maybe a quarter. I had a carrot as a snack so I think I'll get 3.5 serves of veg in me today.
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I went to the supermarket today and pears are $1/ kg so I got four. Rock melon was $2 a kilo so I also got one. So cheap!
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I went to the supermarket today and pears are $1/ kg so I got four. Rock melon was $2 a kilo so I also got one. So cheap!
I bought myself a melon too! It is chopped up in my fridge and I have eaten several slices already. It is so gosh darned delicious at the moment. I also bought some blueberries which were rather more pricey... I should check a list of what's in season to make delicious purchases during our grocery shopping tomorrow.
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I'm averaging slightly over 5 servings (total) per day. I do better on work days, as my work provides free meals & snacks, and that includes lots of produce. So, I'm obviously lazier at home & need to improve.
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Consistently getting one serve of fruit (raspberries with my granola in the morning) and five to six serves of veges. What's working for me is cooking meals in advance that are full of cooked veges (e.g. vegan chilli, tofu vege noodles, vege pasta sauce), and occasionally eating chopped up fresh veges as a snack.
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Consistently getting one serve of fruit (raspberries with my granola in the morning) and five to six serves of veges. What's working for me is cooking meals in advance that are full of cooked veges (e.g. vegan chilli, tofu vege noodles, vege pasta sauce), and occasionally eating chopped up fresh veges as a snack.
I need to buy carrots to snack on. And my neighbour needs to stop bringing round cake. If I can make it a habit to snack on a carrot everyday that's a serve in the bag.
Lunch is where I am falling down. If I'm rushing I put tuna or turkey on bread and nothing else whereas I need to make a big crunchy and nutty salad like they make at this awesome place near me: http://spooningaustralia.com/mint-asian-salad-bar/. Today I'm ok, I had the last of my veg filled curry so I think that's about 2 veg serves done :)
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How many grapes = one serve of fruit I wondered this morning. So I weighed out 150g worth and it's 18 large grapes. That's a lot, I don't think I ever eat that many in a sitting.
Here's a pic: shortly after I transferred a few to hubby's bowl as this many would give me a sore belly!
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I also weighed my rock melon (canteloupe). I think one melon = 4-6 serves. That's less than I thought. The one I've got has a very thick rind though so YMMV.
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How many grapes = one serve of fruit I wondered this morning. So I weighed out 150g worth and it's 18 large grapes. That's a lot, I don't think I ever eat that many in a sitting.
Here's a pic: shortly after I transferred a few to hubby's bowl as this many would give me a sore belly!
I can eat a kilo of grapes in one sitting... BUT they don't cause tummy trouble for me.
I bet Baby Ewok would enjoy grapes (sliced in half for safety), yet another healthy treat we can enjoy together! Most afternoons we share a red capsicum.
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Thanks to this challenge, I ate half a gorgeous tomato all to myself yesterday. I also tried cooking red lentils. They are delicious.
Today's fruit & veg:
Dried apricots, spinach, curried lentils, hummus, and I'm guessing the corn chips I ate don't count ;)
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Today's saving grace is that a tin of baked beans is 2 serves of vegetables. Tonight's dinner is going to be roasted vegetables on a crunchy salad. Cubed pumpkin, kumara on lettuce with some sliced red onion and cranberries. I haven't decided on the protein to go with it yet, but we have mince and tins of beans.
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I've been eating a raw carrot everyday as a snack. It's been an easy way to get the numbers up.
Hey your dinner sounds yum, AV. I've got loads of pumpkin so might join you. We've been meat free all week so I think I'll break out the sausages to go with it.
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I normally really struggle with fruit & vegetables when I travel for work. I did well last week, and ate lots of fresh fruit for breakfast & snacks. Vegetables were still hard, but I got a minimum of 4 servings (between the two)/day. A huge improvement over previous trips.
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I normally really struggle with fruit & vegetables when I travel for work. I did well last week, and ate lots of fresh fruit for breakfast & snacks. Vegetables were still hard, but I got a minimum of 4 servings (between the two)/day. A huge improvement over previous trips.
Good for you! I have heard of people eating capsicums (bell peppers) whole, that could be an option when you don't have utensils and what not. Some people don't peel carrots but unless they are organic I'm not sure that's a great idea. A small tin of corn might work for a snack too. I'm away next week for a few days and it definitely will need some planning.
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Salad bowls with some semi scrambled eggs on top have been a very successful lunch/dinner option for me! We also made a veggie & tomato sauce that works nicely as a cold soup or on pasta.
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Here is the way I've been cooking sprouts recently--I add way more whole coriander seeds than she calls for and it's so tasty I might try the spice combo with cabbage today (which I have languishing in the fridge)
https://www.veganricha.com/2016/04/brussels-sprouts-subzi-indian-spices.html
Also going to roast cauliflower & sweet potato today so I can toss those onto meals.
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I have been eating some very delicious tomatoes recently. Today I had 2 cups of lettuce, some chickpea fritters, and (frozen) banana and blueberries stirred through oat porridge. I was impressed with how the frozen banana turned out, I might have that in breakfast tomorrow.
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I need some ideas for eating my dark leafy greens. Broccoli, spinach, kale, Bok Choy - that group of veggies. I'd guess I need about 2 serves a day of those. What do you all make using those? Please note I can't presently eat dairy or soy products, and I'm looking for quick & easy ideas or ones that can be set up at the start of the week and then eaten all week. If your idea is delicious I can probably work out a swap for soy/dairy ;)
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Roasted broccoli with garlic is always the answer to all your problems.
We eat pasta fairly regularly. If you dump a bag of spinach into your pot of pasta sauce towards the end of the cooking process, it cools down to nothing.
Given there's no egg allergy in your household, I'd consider spinach quiche or spinach and ricotta pie.
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I'm back on the bagged salad bandwagon. Not mustachian, but super helpful in getting me to eat more veggies.
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I need some ideas for eating my dark leafy greens. Broccoli, spinach, kale, Bok Choy - that group of veggies. I'd guess I need about 2 serves a day of those. What do you all make using those? Please note I can't presently eat dairy or soy products, and I'm looking for quick & easy ideas or ones that can be set up at the start of the week and then eaten all week. If your idea is delicious I can probably work out a swap for soy/dairy ;)
I cook with kale. You can use it in any recipe that calls for spinach. I put it in chicken soup along with carrots, parsnips, and green onion. I will sometimes add snap peas if I have them too.
I will add it to scrambled eggs, frittatas, and omelettes. I make the frittatas in cup cake pans and freeze them. I use other veggies in my egg dishes. It is a great way to use up left overs of peppers, mushrooms, asparagus, kale, spinach, other braising greens, broccoli and tomatoes.
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I second the suggestions above.
If you ever want green leafy vegetables on the side, braised in butter and garlic is v tasty.
I don't think cabbage counts as a leafy green, but a great and low effort way to cook it is braised in the slow cooker with vinegar. Warm it makes a v nice accompaniment to sausages. Cold it's nice too as a sort of pickled salad on the side and I ate it for four days last week. It's basically roughly chopped cabbage, an apple, onion and balsamic. Serve with a knob of butter if dairy becomes ok. Google recipes - I do a red cabbage one mostly but I've done it with green too.
Also kale crisps - great as a snack. Tear off bite sized bits, toss in a bowl with a teaspoon of oil so all coated, sprinkle some salt, possibly other things like paprika. Put on a baking tray, single layer of leaves only or they will go soggy, and bake at 150 for 25min. I have to turn the tray around at 10 min as my oven burns stuff at the front. So very yummy. I keep them in an airtight jar but they don't last all week so I don't know if they go soggy ;)
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I find the fruit side of the equation easy, but the vegetable side harder. A few years ago I tried cutting back on the fruit in the hope it would lead to me eating more vegetables, but I just ended up eating less of both.
I read somewhere that people during the war had healthier diets than people living today (despite rationing) because they made a point of eating a proper sit down dinner, with (a little bit of) meat and veg whenever possible. So, I've made it my goal to have a bowl of salad at lunch, and a proper dinner with vegetables as often as I can.
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As it gets colder down under, it's getting more and more viable to bake a tray of veggies with dinner. It's so so easy, somethings you don't even need to chop, or just cut in half, and I throw in unpeeled garlic cloves and then squidge them on my plate with a fork. Yum. Everything tastes better baked - try celery! I'll put them with frozen fish or chicken, or fresh chicken thighs with sweet chilli sauce or some other marinade. Delicious and nutritious and only about 10 mins prep.
Other than a lot of baked veg, I recently made a strange sauteed cabbage side dish that I'm calling Jamaican cabbage. I found a Jamaican curry powder recipe online and sauteed cabbage in butter and my version of that mix. It was delicious and I served it with fish. Cabbage is so cheap but I never want a whole head (and don't want to buy less as it's wrapped in plastic) so I chopped and froze the rest.
I've bought a bag of frozen mango cubes to make smoothies now my stash from the summer glut is used up to keep my fruit intake up. I did buy blueberries too but I'm getting the blue/ purple nutrients from home grown eggplant right now - we are eating it most days, it just keeps coming.
FYI : Pears are $1 / kilo at Coles!
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Funnily enough I was just thinking of this thread! Now that I'm back at work I'm packing myself chopped veges (usually carrots and red capsicum) and occasionally packing a tub of grapes. Very easy to get my seven a day this way.
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Do you take some dip with the veg? I find it hard to be satisfied snacking on veg unless there's some fat with it. I dip carrot in plain peanut butter - no salt, no sugar. When i bake the veg it's got oil on so that's easy.
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Do you take some dip with the veg? I find it hard to be satisfied snacking on veg unless there's some fat with it. I dip carrot in plain peanut butter - no salt, no sugar. When i bake the veg it's got oil on so that's easy.
Sometimes I bring in some (homemade) dip, sometimes I don't!
Maybe I will bring in almond butter some days when I don't have dip. Though I definitely prefer almond butter with plenty of salt added :-P
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I'm desperate for snacks at work. A decent lunch and morning tea (and half a block of dark chocolate with almonds...) was thoroughly insufficient. I ate a 250g dark chocolate & almond block in 2 days of work! Chopped veg with dip sounds like a great idea. I can freeze portions and take one out of the freezer the night before.
I'm also really liking the change in weather, @Fresh Bread though we just had a few 35C+ days here.
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It was 39 on Saturday and then yesterday I had to get my UGGs out! Hopefully we are done with the hot weather but it would be nice not to go straight into winter.
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This thread has really been helpful to me. This week I will be eating 11 different veggies!!!
Zuccchini
Spinach
Arugala
Cherry Tomatoes
Sundried Tomatoes
Olives
Artichokes
Brussell Sprouts
Celery
Carrots
Kale
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For today, I've had a fruit smoothie for lunch, salad with lunch, a rice dish (leftovers) with peppers. Then for dinner, we went out to a salad bar. Kids choice. :-) Had a gift card, so no facepunches. I'd say I have had about 10 servings today. Plenty of fruit & veggies!
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This thread has really been helpful to me. This week I will be eating 11 different veggies!!!
Zuccchini
Spinach
Arugala
Cherry Tomatoes
Sundried Tomatoes
Olives
Artichokes
Brussell Sprouts
Celery
Carrots
Kale
Thank you for your service.
Seriously though, I think you've covered the rainbow there, easily! Nice one.
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Discovered a new trick : cauliflower in smoothies
I'd heard it recommended before but it sounded too odd/strong tasting--however yesterday I didn't have greens to add to my blueberry/banana smoothie so I tossed in a handful of raw cauliflower, couldn't taste it at all but it thickens up the smoothie nicely..and cruciferous veggies to start the day is an added bonus.
Reading more about microbiome health, how the sheer variety of plant fiber plays such an important component of a healthy diet which now means I am trying to expand beyond my usual go-to's.
Added bok choy, turnips, beets, brussel sprouts, and acorn squash to the grocery shop this week.
So excited for spring and being able to wild-harvest dandelion greens, nettles, etc
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Still loving this challenge. Drinking an avo kale pineapple banana smoothie right now although it’s totally unmastachian because I bought it instead of making it
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I'm still buying bagged salad in order to get in the veggies. It's helping, but is obviously not the most mustachian choice. It would be reasonably easy to make on my own. Maybe I'll get the supplies & make that a goal for April.
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I'm still buying bagged salad in order to get in the veggies. It's helping, but is obviously not the most mustachian choice. It would be reasonably easy to make on my own. Maybe I'll get the supplies & make that a goal for April.
Do you mean just the bagged greens, or the complete salad kits? I buy the greens in bags and I don't think they're that spendy. But if you're buying the ones with the little packets of dressing , dried fruit, etc. included, then you can probably do that much cheaper!
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I'm new to this challenge, although not new to the goal of increasing fruit & veg. I've been trying to follow Dr. Greger's How not to Die plan. One of his devotees created a free app called Daily Dozen. It's really helpful for me to see how my day is progressing, and make wise choices accordingly. For example, yesterday I hadn't had any fruit by mid-afternoon, so my snack was fruit salad. (If I hadn't had the app, I might have gone for chips & hummus).
The app includes special categories of fruit & veg, although you can be flexible with it. I categorized today's lunchtime arugula salad as a cruciferous vegetable. But I think I'm stir-frying some cabbage with dinner tonight. If so, I'll count the arugula as a leafy green instead. The idea is just to make sure you are getting a good variety of fruits & veg, and try to get leafy greens, crucifers, & berries every day along with your various other items. I recommend the app and Dr. Greger's book & website!
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Can I just say I am in love with roasted beets? For anyone who has a sweet toooth, they are so good and taste like candy. Delish! I never really experimented with roasted veggies before this thread so it’s like a whole new world.
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I'm doing well with volume of veges (especially on days I have cut up carrots and red capsicum to snack on), but not so well with variety. Time to start tracking that for myself as well.
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I am applying the tools of personal finance to veggie eating and have made a spreadsheet to track my daily intake. Still loving this challenge thank you for posting it!
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Can I just say I am in love with roasted beets? For anyone who has a sweet toooth, they are so good and taste like candy. Delish! I never really experimented with roasted veggies before this thread so it’s like a whole new world.
They are really good. Try them with crumbled goat cheese, chopped pecans, and balsamic vinaigrette or orange vinaigrette (the latter is standard vinaigrette with half balsamic vinegar and half orange juice and a little grated orange zest). It's my favorite way to eat them.
Following because husband and I definitely go through periods of slacking on our intake of plants. Thank goodness for the electric pressure cooker, which means that we have beans fairly regularly. We also prefer spaghetti squash in place of pasta, veg-heavy soups a few times a month, and lots of roasted frozen broccoli. Now that it's spring, though, we're more interested in more variety.
We bought a spiralizer last year and enjoy making zucchini noodles (so good sauteed with garlic and butter!) and spiral potatoes and sweet potatoes (toss in oil, sprinkle with seasoning, roast until cooked and a little crisp).
We also tried colcannon (mashed potatoes mixed with shredded cooked cabbage) and potato/turnip mash this winter and recommend both.
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I'm doing it! I'm making a meal, absent-mindedly adding vegetables and eating a balanced plate of food! Unsure if I'm hitting the 5&2, I might track that next week, but this thread has been awesome.
I've just planted beets, spinach & lettuce in our garden to have leafy greens on hand. Fingers crossed the slugs & snails don't decimate them, I'll probably need to grab copper tape at the hardware store.
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Any ideas on incorporating vegetables that are not nightshades or onions into breakfast? Spinach or mushroom omelettes get old at some point. Thanks!
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Any ideas on incorporating vegetables that are not nightshades or onions into breakfast? Spinach or mushroom omelettes get old at some point. Thanks!
How about Asian greens (Bok Choy etc), herbs like coriander or garlic, cubed pumpkin, some frozen peas?
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Any ideas on incorporating vegetables that are not nightshades or onions into breakfast? Spinach or mushroom omelettes get old at some point. Thanks!
How about Asian greens (Bok Choy etc), herbs like coriander or garlic, cubed pumpkin, some frozen peas?
I am not ready for garlic in the morning :) but peas a great idea, thanks!
Also maybe I should try smoothies again (did not work for me before but who knows)
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I'm about to tuck into my daily lunch salad - today it's arugula, tomatoes, avocado and radish. I'll also have some tuna and crackers on the side. I also brought grapes for dessert and a nectarine for later.
Dinner will be roasted potatoes, fish and zucchini.
So I guess that's 5+2 right there.
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Good thread!
I started using "Dr Greger's Daily Dozen" app (both android & apple) as a 'checklist' for my daily intake. So good! Definitely recommend it!
I checked out the app but I need to read the book I think to understand the inclusions, I'm sure it would be interesting. I don't think I've ever eaten flaxseed. And why the Vit D supplement? I have blood tests that show I'm not deficient.
its a vegan app , they assume you need to get your nutrients only from plants
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I'm reviving this thread, because I need to get back in the habit of eating at least five serves of veges every day (I'm less concerned about whether I eat any fruit).
My lunch today includes one serve of veg, I haven't packed snacks (it's a work day) and breakfast had zero serves of veg, so I will plan on eating carrot and red capsicum with hummus when I get home from work today to boost my vege intake before dinner.
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good bump @HappierAtHome
I'll rejoin this challenge as I've slacked for sure. I'm eating heaps of grains, which I'm fine with but need some variety.
We are having lentil soup tonight, I added quite a load of frozen spinach and dehydrated kale (and will add in some leftover red cabbage to mine)
Earlier today had a sandwich with spinach, tomato
Will cook up some brussel sprouts tonight that are in the fridge for eating this week
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Lentils count as veg too, so it's a fabulous head start on any meal.
We are having a weekly veg delivery for a few months to boost our intake. This week the delivery included 3 cucumbers! Like HaH I have no veg at brekkie so will be boosting my intake by eating cucumber sticks dipped in minty yoghurt.
Dinner will be some lump of protein with asparagus, mashed sweet potato plus lettuce, tomato & cucumber salad. I had leftover pasta with kale pesto for lunch which sounds healthy but there was only a thimbleful of veg in reality.
I will cancel the veg delivery after this week as the convenience mark up is too high. Then I hope to get back to posting what's in season / on special in Australia each week. There are veg that are always cheaper than others but it's good to have variety.
@HappierAtHome you don't have Harris Farm Markets over your way, do you?
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@HappierAtHome you don't have Harris Farm Markets over your way, do you?
No, sadly not! I hear good things about them from others.
I do live a five minute drive / ten minute walk (except with intersections that are shitty for pedestrians, which is hard when I have the pram) away from Aldi, Coles and Woolies, plus a new fruit and veg place that I need to try. And we have a farmers' market a five minute walk from home on Saturdays.
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I am grateful others started this up again. Ideas from others is just what I could do with right now. Lentils for dinner and veg + dips sounds right about my level of effort this week.
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I lucked into a bunch (like 10 12 oz containers) of cubed butternut squash on super clearance. And bought them all. And turned about half of it into roasted butternut squash with 5 spice (tikka masala blend spices) and drizzled with maple syrup. The other bit is curried butternut squash soup (the secret ingredients are coconut cream and cayenne pepper).
And then got sad when all the soup was gone, so went back to the store, and lucked into a sale on whole butternuts for 49¢/pound. We're gonna be turning orange in my house this week... can't stop eating it.
I adore using cucumber slices (or sweet red pepper strips) with chicken salad, or my other super fave: chicken ranch wraps (sliced roasted chicken, cucumber strips, a sprinkle of sharp cheddar and drizzle of ranch dressing - served in a tortilla).
Cucumber and sweet peppers with tzatziki dip is sheer heaven.
I eat at least 4 servings of broccoli/cauliflower blend every day. I LOVE it and feel weird if I don't get it at all.
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@Frankies Girl , you might like this:
https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/slow-cooker-thai-butternut-squash-curry/
Obviously you can leave out the fish sauce to make it vegan, you can swap in brocolli and cauliflower, but the combo of coconut milk, Thai Red Curry paste* and peanut butter is just amazing. I made this on Sat and couldn't stop eating it. Happier, I bet you could use cashew or some other nut flavour.
* I used the Five Tastes brand.
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@Frankies Girl , you might like this:
https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/slow-cooker-thai-butternut-squash-curry/
Obviously you can leave out the fish sauce to make it vegan, you can swap in brocolli and cauliflower, but the combo of coconut milk, Thai Red Curry paste* and peanut butter is just amazing. I made this on Sat and couldn't stop eating it. Happier, I bet you could use cashew or some other nut flavour.
* I used the Five Tastes brand.
That looks really nifty! And I ADORE curries. I do eat meat tho so no worries about adding in fish sauce or anything. :)
I just hope I can make it, as the squash tends to get eaten FAST around here. I roasted 4 pounds already tonight, and at least one pound was already inhaled with just a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.
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Oh that's good, definitely don't leave out the fish sauce then.
We grew Kent pumpkins last year and had so much soup, it was delicious.
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Had pesto pasta with broccoli *and I added brussel sprouts since I love them so much
https://www.veganricha.com/2018/07/vegan-pesto-pasta.html
Didn't use the recipe since we had a leftover jar of pesto that needed to be used up but it was the inspiration for the meal
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I am still doing good with veggies (eat salad everyday for lunch with no meats just veggies cheese and eggs). I’m stoked its fall and now I’m eating my favorite fruit persimmons yum!
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@Frankies Girl , you might like this:
https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/slow-cooker-thai-butternut-squash-curry/
Obviously you can leave out the fish sauce to make it vegan, you can swap in brocolli and cauliflower, but the combo of coconut milk, Thai Red Curry paste* and peanut butter is just amazing. I made this on Sat and couldn't stop eating it. Happier, I bet you could use cashew or some other nut flavour.
* I used the Five Tastes brand.
Yum!
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Did well again today. Ate a red capsicum and two carrots (all chopped up and dipped in hummus) this afternoon, then dinner included spinach, red onion, zucchini and baby carrots.
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Pear crisp for breakfast, then leftovers of pasta with brussel sprouts & broccoli for lunch.
Dinner might be last of the lentil, spinach soup (or will have to peek and see if there are any ingredients left to cook up into something new)
Also would like to go buy some butternut squash after all that talk about it..
*decided to make this for dinner to add some variety and bought the squash for tomorrow :)
https://www.budgetbytes.com/falafel-salad/
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Pear crisp for breakfast, then leftovers of pasta with brussel sprouts & broccoli for lunch.
Dinner might be last of the lentil, spinach soup (or will have to peek and see if there are any ingredients left to cook up into something new)
Also would like to go buy some butternut squash after all that talk about it..
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/coconut-curried-butternut-squash-soup-3415383
^this is a decent recipe, swear it doesn't taste COCONUT (you'll barely even be able to tell if that sounds weird) and if you like a bit of heat, a pinch of cayenne pepper well blended (or a tiny bit more - but be careful) give squash soups (you can use pumpkin puree - canned or whatever too) an amazing spice note that I can't not do now because I miss it too much otherwise, but super (soup-er) delicious soup. Can use veggie broth if you want to make it vegan.
https://www.emilieeats.com/maple-curry-roasted-brussels-sprouts-butternut-squash-apples/
^this is pretty amazing, can do with just brussels, just butternut or a combo of butternut and brussels (leave out the apples)
I don't have a real recipe for my roasted butternut squash but it likely is a common recipe. I cube it, toss in a bowl with olive oil and roast at 400˚F for about 40 minutes (want a bit of brown), then a few dashes of garam masala (or cinnamon), some salt, a pat or two of butter (to taste), and then drizzle with maple syrup (I actually use sugar free pancake syrup) to taste. Can do without the syrup if you just want a savory side.
https://naturallyella.com/roasted-radish-and-asparagus-salad/
^roasting root vegetables like radishes elevates them to amazing nutty flavored awesome. This was my intro to roasting veggies, and I now do this with just plain ol radishes and can leave out the green onion and I don't use sugar for the sauce.
We've gotten to where we LOVE plain broccoli (with cauliflower sometimes) with only salt and pepper. We do the steam in bag ones, so go about 1 minute past the recommended cook time to get them a bit more soft.
Spinach fave is super easy: fresh spinach with about a half tablespoon of butter, low/medium heat in skillet, cook until wilted, then sprinkle garlic powder and salt to taste. If you use frozen, then just try to squeeze out as much liquid as you can before sautéeing. Can fry actual garlic with, but the garlic powder is SO easy and tastes great. Can do this with olive oil but give a weird mouth feel to me personally.
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Thanks! I can't eat raw banana (gives me a headache - I know, weird) but I could put some avo in there.
I love bananas but can't eat anything (artificially) banana flavoured cos it gives me a headache. Used to love the sugary banana sweets you could get (google tells me they are called foam bananas) but got a headache every time I ate them. You don't have to have a banana to make a smoothie, though, just do without it.
I was also thinking of trying to dice half an apple the evening before and putting it in my morning oats.
Do you soak your oats overnight? You could grate an apple into them and have a kind of Bircher muesli effect.
Right, hopefully I'll catch up on the rest of this thread soon. I am trying really hard to increase the amount of veg I eat so ideas on how to do that are always good to have.
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mmm..thanks for the recipe recommendations @Frankies Girl --
Am currently roasting the squash!
About to also make some hummus (adding parsley, cilantro & basil stems to the blender is one way to use them up and add a different flavour)
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Papaya & turmeric root in my breakfast oatmeal
Lentil soup with roasted veggies for lunch
Rice/beans with broccoli & spinach for dinner
Success!
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Yesterday: wild berries in my oatmeal
-lunch: avocado on toast
-dinner: veggie spring rolls with mint, red pepper, cucumber, lime
*need to roast more veggies tomorrow as that seems to be the easiest way for me to up my veggie intake. Also, greens--will buy some bok choy, broccoli and swiss chard this week. I dehydrate kale in the summer/autumn so we add handfuls of that to everything as well (into rice, soups, etc)
**this challenge is helping me add variety as well--bought some mushrooms and asian eggplant as well as some unusual peppers
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Using the oven is fun and helps heat the house in the winter, so I also roast veggies a lot when the temperature drops.
Last night I roasted 1lb of trimmed, halved brussels sprouts in oil salt and pepper. I then cooked them into a hash with 4 eggs, garlic, some crumbled leftover bacon, and topped it with some parm.
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Bumping the thread because I think at this time of year, eating enough veges can be a lovely form of self-care to balance out all the rich food.
Tomorrow I'll be making a red curry with potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, peas and red capsicum. And tofu ;-)
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Still haven't caught up on the start of this thread but aiming to start this year off better than last. I mostly aimed to finish last year better than it started but a few days in Ireland with little to no control over food meant realising once more that far more meals are far less balanced than one would hope. Still, at the two meals I ate out, I made decent choices considering what was on the menu, I think. Once bruschetta (which came with a big helping of rocket, not my favourite but at least something green in a sea of very brown/beige days) and sweet potato fries and the other with a salad as a starter of a two-course meal instead of going for a dessert. Mind you, the salad was enormous so I left behind most of the chicken and mostly just ate the salady-bits.
Anyway, have watched Consumed over the christmas, I was inspired yesterday to rearrange my kitchen cupboards somewhat. It's all about the optimal use of the space you have! I have one big, deep press that I had been using for tins and jars but stuff was just so hard to find. So I've moved all of that over to the smaller cupboard and moved the Tupperware with dried stuff in it into the big cupboard. Slightly easier to move around plastic containers to find what I want and I generally know exactly what stuff I have in Tupperware so it's less likely anything will get "lost". I threw out a couple of things yesterday that were a few years past the BB date and discovered several things that are very close to or just past their BB date. Now that I have things a bit more sorted, I know exactly what needs to be used up quickly. So, there's a good bit of pesto on the menu for the next couple of weeks.
After all that yesterday, I was very happy with my dinner of boiled potatoes, steamed salmon, with a third of a big jar of red cabbage, and a portion of tomatoes, onion and courgette that I dragged out of the freezer. Had quark with mandarins (half of a tin just past it's date) this morning and will have the same again tomorrow. Leftover potatoes, salmon and another third of the jar of cabbage was lunch and I'm making a butternut squash and beef curry this evening. Might not make it to 5 full servings of veg but my main aim is to achieve the 50% veg or salad/25% carbs/25% protein recommended by my dietician. So, will add loads of onion to the curry and throw in one of the tins of carrots and peas I found in the cupboard yesterday. Might see if there are some greens to be had in the shop when passing on my way home. Wilting a couple of handfuls of spinach or similar into a curry has become one of my favourite ways to try and up the veggie content of a meal.
Any ideas of how I can veggie up a chicken pesto dish? I think I have some broccoli in the freezer and I suppose I can add some onion and leek to the pan.
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@Moonwaves, broccoli is definitely a good call with pesto, as is steamed spinch or asparagus
We had a fondue for NY eve dinner--cheese & bread but also included about 8 veggie options so it felt more balanced. Dipping veggies in cheese is decadent but fitting for NY :)
Then a breakfast brunch with friends yesterday, started with a big fruit salad, then frittata with peppers/onions, then served with arugula, tomato shakshuka sauce & yam/cashew dip.
Now, I am looking forward to simple meals (eating out the pantry basics with veggies on top of everything!)
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First day back at work after the Christmas break and I'm back on board with a big tub of vege and tofu curry for lunch.
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My curry wasn't as tasty as it could have been but has potential for tweaking. It was actually a recipe for a quick massaman curry, where you add already cooked potatoes and use minute steak pieces. But I could only get stewing beef pieces and was substituting uncooked butternut squash for the potato. So I added water and cooked it for a bit longer. Still good, but the flavour was a bit diluted. I made things worse by deciding to cook rice in the same pot, which meant adding a bit more water. Only having one pot to clean was worth it though. And all told I used almost 1.4kg of veg (butternut squash, onion, leek, kohlrabi and a small tin of peas and carrots) for what turned out to be 5 good-sized portions.
If a standard serve size (as per Australian guidelines mentioned at start of this thread) is 75g then each portion of my curry is about 3.5 servings. That's not bad, actually. Along with the cabbage from lunch, I may have just about reached my 5 a day.
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Tried to veg-up some Liptons chicken noodle soup (due to a lingering cough)--added fresh ginger, hot chilis, tomato and broccoli.. Much better.
Have been topping everything with roasted sweet potato & we have pots of veggie chili as well as lentil/coconut/spinach soup in the fridge.
Feels like adding veg to anything I might be eating is the sure-fire way to use things up from the fridge as well as getting a hit of nutrients.
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Made a lentil and chicken stew yesterday and it is fab. Smoked paprika makes everything taste good. Used a total of 1,260g veg (mostly tomatoes - one tin and one carton of passata - but also onions, carrots, and mushrooms) and will get six portions out of it, I think. Had the first for dinner on the run this evening and it is really good. I'm feeling very impressed with myself. I also made pumpkin soup so along with the last two portions of veg soup from last week, I have a fridge full of just-needs-to-heated-up food to see me through this very busy week.
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So, last week's pumpkin soup was a bit meh so I added a half a tin of coconut milk, an already cooked chicken breast chopped into bits and a couple of spoonfuls of Thai green curry paste. So much better. Threw some rice into the last portion of it to bulk it up a bit and that was great, too.
This weekend I bought a Savoy cabbage. Half of it is cooking now so that I can use some of it to make colcannon tomorrow - potatoes are peeled and waiting so all I'll have to do when I get home from the gym tomorrow evening is to boil and mash them. The other half of it went into a cabbage soup, the recipe for which I found in an old book I bought a few years ago, Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book. Basically cabbage, onions and apples with some garlic and ginger. It's lovely, although I'd use less stock next time to get a slightly thicker soup.
I've also made pulled pork today in the slow cooker and instead of just doing it on bed of onions, the way I've always done it before, I used onions, 2 leeks and a kohlrabi (and added the leaves of the kohrabi to my scrambled eggs today and felt very virtuous). There's an onion and a tin of tomatoes in the braising liquid, too. I'm really looking forward to my lunches this week.
How is everyone else doing?
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I apparently just bought a Japanese yam instead of a regular sweet potato. I am going to mash them with coconut oil. Not sure if anyone else has experience with them.
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I chucked a big handful of salad leaves over my bolognaise and mixed it in as I ate. Having prepped vegetables on hand is definitely making a difference.
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I apparently just bought a Japanese yam instead of a regular sweet potato. I am going to mash them with coconut oil. Not sure if anyone else has experience with them.
How was the yam? I've just read this article (https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-yams-and-sweet-potatoes-word-of-mouth-211176) on the difference between sweet potatoes and yam and then the wikipedia entry on yams (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_(vegetable)). All of which would have left me, if I had just bought a yam by mistake, thinking I might just have cornflakes for dinner.
I have been doing pretty well eating the cabbage soup and pulled pork I made at the weekend. I made colcannon on Monday evening to go with the pork and then last night, even though I was a bit wrecked by the time I got home, I made potato cakes with the leftover colcannon and then heated up some pulled pork and cabbage to go with it. For good measure, I added a handful of salad leaves - you're absolutely right Anatidae, having that prepped and on hand made it much easier. I thought I was getting a bit sick of eating the same couple of things and was going to just get canteen food for lunch but last night's dinner was actually delicious and this morning I ended up just assembling the leftover potato cakes, some pulled pork, some cabbage and the rest of the salad into Tupperware and it will be today's lunch.
There's still a portion of cabbage left and I also have half-a-tin of coconut milk that needs to be used up. I may throw those two in a pan together this evening, add a couple of handfuls of green beans from the freezer and some curry paste and whatever else I can scrounge up and that will be dinner.
Also need to come up with a good plan for next week. Have lots of choir things going on both this weekend, most nights next week and then the concerts next weekend. I was thinking of going old-school with good old ham and cheese sandwiches for a lot of the week. Maybe I'll find time to make soup at the weekend and cover some veg intake that way. A minimum of washing-up is actually what I'm looking for as if I'm home late every evening, I won't want to do it, and if it builds up without me doing it, it can lead to me not wanting to be in the kitchen at all, which isn't great for cooking efforts.
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If they were in fact Japanese yams they were amazing. I made them like mashed potatoes with coconut oil and coconut milk and they were seriously fantastic.