What veggies do you eat?
 

I have done pretty well on increasing my fruit intake but in looking at diet tips and the daily recommendations I really need to increase my veggies too. My delima is that I don't like a lot of cooked vegetables.

I have read that we should get 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables daily with more veggies than fruit though not by much.

Here's what I have tried so far:
Cucumbers
Green Bell Peppers
Baby Carrots
Celery
Califlower (haven't added that yet. I know I liked it in the past but that was with dip :o )

Any suggestions? I thought about salads but find fat free or low fat dressings not even worth eating.

Remember I don't like a lot of cooked vegetables. I can stomach peas, hominy and LOVE any cooked white potatoes though there is controversy on if those are good or not.

I like most veggies, so I might not be any help, but here's a few you don't have that are pretty tasty:

Beets the root and the greens are both edible
Squash, my faves are butternut and acorn
Pumpkin
Sweet potatoes, if you like potatoes, try this one it's much better for you than white and has a ton of vitamin A
Avocado
Green beans, they can be eaten cooked or raw, super low cal and good for you
Pea pods also called snow peas
Broccoli
Spinach, cooked or raw
Radish
Kohlrabi, cooked or raw
Corn
Peppers, there are a ton of varieties, my fave are banana

Well that's all I can think of for the moment, I'm beat, spent the day planting my garden.

I eat spinach every weekday. We have a cafeteria at work, so I know I'm going to get that.
Broccoli is a good raw veg.

Have you tried grilling the veggies? It's a different flavor than steaming or boiling. Asparagus, bell peppers, corn, tomato, and zucchini all grill up nicely. (best to skewer the asparagus and tomatoes (if you use small ones))

Thanks almeeker! I have some questions and comments~

I LOVE Avocados but worry about the fat.

I never thought to eat Green beans raw. Maybe I will try that. I like them cooked as long as they are in a green bean casserole but that probably defeats the purpose. ;)

Pea pods also called snow peas - I have seen those before but how the heck do you eat them? Do you eat them whole? Sorry that may seem like a silly question but I really have no idea.

Lastly - what the heck is Kohlrabi?

Oh, thought of one more - Pumpkin. All I can think of is pumpkin pie which is probably not what you intended.

I have not tried that. I generally don't like how the consistency and flavor of the vegetables change when cooked. I don't know if that makes sense or not. Cooked carrots is a perfect example for me. I don't think those taste anything like a raw carrot. Try to find a can of soup without carrots... :rolleyes: Can you tell I really hate cooked carrots?!?! LOL!

This makes me laugh. I hate cooked carrots too! Not all cooked veggies, but carrots, blech.

The fat in avocados is predominantly monounsaturated fat. It's good for you and it really fills you up in a way that polyunsaturated fat doesn't. I wouldn't stuff down more than one per day, because at some point you're going to start storing, but one a day for breakfast doesn't sound too shabby to me. I hear it beautifies the skin too.

Have you tried spicing up your veggies? We have Indian food at home all the time and we sauté about a half tsp each of cumin, turmeric, mustard seed, powdered coriander seed; about a quarter tsp of asafoetida (a pungent, garlicky spice; a clove of garlic is a decent sub); and red chili powder to taste before throwing on the veggie of the day. Could be boiled cubed potatoes, cauliflower, shredded cabbage, spinach, corn, green beans, zucchini, okra...

The spices usually mask the odd wilty consistency of cooked vegetables.

If you like peas, you might also like edamame (ed-a-ma-may), just a fancy word for soybeans. I first had it as an appetizer at a sushi restaurant, but you can get it at grocery stores too, usually with the frozen veggies. They look like peas, sold right in the shell (just don't eat the shell!) I put a half cup or so in a bowl, splash of water, and microwave for 2 minutes. You can eat them warm, or sometimes I take them the next day for a snack at work and eat them cold. The consistency is like peas but they have a lot of protein.

Canned veggies are AWFUL!! There's a reason why babies spit them all over. Stir-fried or steamed fresh veggies are so much better tasting and better in texture. Raw is great too. Frozen is OK if I don't have fresh. I haven't tried grilling them, I should look into that.

I love raw avocado, and I never make my salad on plain iceberg lettuce. I use spinach or the fancy bagged lettuces. As far as dressing goes, I like the Kraft light done right ones, or just a smaller amount of the real stuff. Balsamic vinegar is great on a salad too, there's as many varieties of that as there are varieties of wine. I'll put half an avocado and some canned beans or chickpeas on a salad, because it's got to have some fat and protein or it won't stick with me. Edamame works well on salads too. I also use rice noodles (like chow mein noodles but smaller) and sunflower seeds or nuts in moderation to add crunch to a salad. Mashed up or sliced avocado is a great alternatative to mayo in a sandwich, and plain Greek yogurt is nummy as a veggie dip. Hommus (ground seasoned chickpeas) is a great veggie dip too. I eat most of my fruits and veggies raw, never canned except for beans. Salsa is super easy to make yourself too. I'll use that instead of dressing with some beans, grilled chicken and Greek yogurt on a salad to make a healthier version of a taco salad. I find it's easier to eat veggies if I keep raw ones cut up in the fridge at all times, baby carrots and cherry tomatoes and celery mostly. Then I can just grab a handful when munchies hit.

Oh and a kohlrabi is a root vegetable, flavor-wise it's kind of similar to the stem of a cauliflower plant. It looks like a large white beet. You can shred them for cole slaw or salads, or boil and mash them as a potato substitute. I've seen them used for veggie fries and cubed up in soups or stews as well.

Almeeker, I may be your long lost twin after all lol!

Oh, and vinegrette (sp?) is really easy to make at home. You can just shake it to an emulsion in a jar. That way you can control the taste and the oil content.

Thank you everyone for your input. Keep the suggestions coming! I just got back from the store~
Baby carrots
Broccoli
cauliflower
cherry tomatoes
romaine lettuce
one red and one yellow bell pepper

I also bought regular blue cheese dressing. I am not a big sauce fan, same goes for dressing so I think I will use a minimal amount. I like my food more, well I guess some would say dry. My thought was if I have a salad that has virtually no fat, a little fatty dressing would be okay.

There is an super yummy chicken salad that I love at one restaurant that has sliced avocados on it. I find the avocados almost replace the dressing as I put even less on when those are on the salad so maybe I will try those in place of dressing in the near future.

I bought so many veggies I now don't know where I am going to fit in the fruit; I also bought apples, oranges and bananas. I told my Husband that I couldn't believe all the healthy stuff we had on the cart. He thinks my body is going to go into shock! :p

I told him my plan to try and fill up on fruits and veggies during the day to get my recommended daily amounts and hopefully not have a lot of room left for the not so healthy stuff. He agreed that it sounded logical. We will see how it goes starting tomorrow. :cool:

Agree! Same goes for canned fruit although that's not as bad as the canned veggies. I use to think they were okay until I started eating fresh fruit.

I never liked many veggies at all. But after a few months i love every vegetable out there it seems. The more you start eating them, the more you body will crave them. Try a chinese style stir fry without meat for a veggie dish i have every night. Or i cut them up and get them moist with water and then sprinkle seasoning on them and then put on a baking sheet in the oven for 20 minutes.

Avocado fat (in moderation) is good for you. I make guacamole with them and eat copious amounts of it on taco salad. For guacamole I just squish the avocado up a little and stir in a dash of cumin, salt & pepper, a couple of TBL of salsa and some Greek yogurt, very yummy and super healthy.

I hate to say it, but green bean casserole is basically heart attack in a baking dish. Seriously read the labels on the soup and onions if you don't believe me. Green beans are pretty yummy raw. I make dip out of Greek yogurt and light ranch salad dressing that knocks them out of the park. They are also good stir fried, with just a tiny bit of cooking spray, splash of soy sauce and a small handful of slivered almonds, which we call "green bean almondine".

Snow peas are good raw as well, but you have to buy the fresh ones to enjoy them that way. If you buy the frozen ones I would recommend stir frying them with a small amount of cooking spray. I toss them into all kinds of dishes, anything even remotely oriental and any recipe that calls for peas is a good place for snow peas. They actually taste much like peas, but are bigger and usually a bit sweeter. I grow them in my garden and the kids walk along and eat them off the vines, that's how good they are fresh. And it's not just my weird kids that eat them, all kids seem to. We even had trouble last year with the dog eating them right out of the garden.

Lizzycritter did a really good job explaining kohlrabi. It grows really fast, so why it's not a grocery veggie is anybody's guess, Farmer's markets usually carry it. It's somewhere between a turnip and cauliflower in flavor. It can also be eaten raw, we usually slice them into rounds and put dip or cottage cheese on them like crackers. You can also saute it in a bit of oil or butter, or marinate it with Italian dressing and grill it.

Pumpkin is a veggie, and it's also very good for you. It actually helped the Pilgrims survive the second winter and many winters after that, and it also kept their cows alive. In this modern world we really don't eat pumpkin except for pumpkin pie at holidays, but we should. We probably don't eat it anymore because our ancestors ate it at nearly every sitting and called it "New England Constitution". It's counted as an "orange" veggie (you're supposed to get 3 servings of orange veggies weekly - minimum), it has tons of vitamin A and fiber? It's also low cal, about 80 calories/cup, low fat and versatile. It makes great soup, it's good baked and mashed with a little salt and low fat sour cream. Or you can make it sweet with a bit of honey and spice it up like pumpkin pie and enjoy it hot or cold for dessert. You can also use it in quick bread recipes and cookies.

Oh and I'm going to second that "canned veggie" business. Canned veggies are disgusting. I'll bet if you tried homemade soup with carrots in it, you would love them. Okay maybe love is a bit much, but I'll bet you could eat it just fine and even enjoy the experience.

My faves in the frozen veggie aisle are:

- Asparagus
- Edamame
- Sugar Snap Peas
- Brussels Sprouts
- Any of Green Giant's new "Health Blends" (They're so easy and yummy for a quick lunch, but maybe a tad high in sodium)


My faves from the fresh produce aisle:

- Sweet Potatoes
- Avocado
- Baby Spinach-based salad (with other awesome greens)
- Grape Tomatoes
- Cucumbers
- Beets (I keep forgetting to buy them, but they're on the list too :D)

I am eating my lunch now. I made a salad. I guess it's a salad because it has lettuce but it's like no salad I ever made (more veggies than ever before).

2 C romane lettuce
1/4 C red bell pepper
1/4 C yellow bell pepper
4 grape tomatoes
1/2 C brocolli
2T blue cheese dressing - regular

So, you know I can't say I have ever had raw brocolli. Always seen it on the veggie trays at parties but went for chips and dip instead. ;) You know, I really like it! Add that to next week's shopping list!

I also found that the juiciness and flavor of all the veggies really made it to where I could eat it all with only 1 T of dressing. Since I use the regular kind, that's certainly a bonus.

Looking at what is considered a serving size of veggies - I have 5 just in that salad! :cool:

I have recently read a lot about kale and that it may be one of the healthiest foods on the planet. I found a great website that expains the nutrional benefits of kale (and other leafy greens). It also has recipe ideas of how to use it... they even suggest putting it in fruit smoothies! Whole Food Mommies - Nutrition, Whole Food Plant Based Diet Blog and Recipes

I love kale! I tend to add spinach to almost every soup I make for the added nutrients, but kale adds a little extra something if you use that instead. I bought a calorie counter cookbook recently and they have a recipie for 'kale chips'. You basically make a little seasoned oil mixture, toss the kale leaves in it, and bake them off. You can sub these for chips or pita wedges with dips for added nutrition, plus you get to control the amount of oil used, unlike when buying chips.

Good advice to try as may vegetables as you can, prepared all different ways:

My favorites:
Spinach (raw or cooked with rice and fennel and onions)
Mixed Salad Greens (raw)
Escarole (boiled or sautéed with oil and garlic)
Broccoli Rabe (broiled and seasoned with lemon and oil)
Broccoli (steamed)
Dandelion Greens (boiled and seasoned with lemon and oil)
Artichokes (fresh (warning! - a lot of work) and stewed with peas, onion and fennel)
String Beans (fresh steamed)
Green beans; flat (stewed with carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, parsley etc.)
Carrots (raw, boiled or cooked in soups, stews, etc.)
Kale (braised in the oven)
Swiss Chard (braised in the oven)
Peppers; sweet (raw or roasted)
Peppers; hot (roasted or added to dished)
Okra (roasted with hot peppers, onions and tomato)
Avocado (guacamole or sliced in a sandwich)
Cucumber (raw with sea salt)
Tomato (not technically a vegetable)(raw, great in soups, stews and roasted)
Asparagus (roasted or steamed)
Sweet potatoes
White potatoes
Yuka
Corn; fresh; in-season (not technically a vegetable)(boiled and salted; baked)
Beets, bulbs and greens (boiled and seasoned with vinegar)
Mushrooms (not really a vegetable)(sautéed, roasted, grilled)
Celery
Onions
...endless

Okay, this one has me confused...You don't mean all those pesky weeds we just killed in my yard do you?

Yea. But I don't think you want to forage them from any chemically treated property :eek:

You can buy them at many markets. The ones with the red stems always seem to be more tender than the ones with the white stems. From what I know, the commercially grown ones are harvested before the flowers appear - that's when they're less bitter.

Trim off the stems; boil them with plenty of water until fully cooked (tender); drain; and season with oil and vinegar. Enjoy!

Here's a list of veggies that I'm usually working with.
I'll usually grill my veggies except for few (artichoke, broccoli for example)
or I'll eat them raw in a salad.
I was going to list avocado, but technically that's a fruit, but I'll go through 4-6 avos weekly-ya I know that's a lot, but it's 'good' fat.

Veggies:
Artichoke
Asparagus
Broccoli
Bell Pepper, Red
Bell Pepper, Green
Bell Pepper, Yellow
Carrots, Baby
Cilantro
Corn,Yellow-on cob
Corn,White-on cob
Cucumbers
Green Beans
Mushrooms
Mushrooms, Portabella
Onion, Red
Onion, Green
Pepper, Anaheim
Pepper, Jalapeno
Potato, Red
Red Leaf Lettuce
Spinach-Large leaf
Spinach-Baby leaf
Summer Squash/Zucchini
Tomato, Roma

I eat zucchini, broccoli, carrots, and onion. Not much else, really. Tomatoes, if you want to classify them as veg.

I don't think there are any veggies I can eat raw--unless I want to spend the rest of the day uncomfortably bloated and, er, embarrassed. If you get my drift. Same with beans. My vegetarian days are over.

I know they have this stuff called Bean-o, which I used to take, but it turns out it's got gluten in it, and gluten gives me neurological problems. So, the only veggies I eat are cooked, usually stir-fried in olive oil. Or, in the case of carrots, roasted.

Honestly, I eat veggies in phases. I'll have a lot of vegetables in my diet for a week or so, and then I'm just sick of all the chopping and cooking, not to mention the fact that it's hard to find veggies that look good in the store, so I go for a while without.

I hear ya on the "embarassed" issue...peppers will do that to me every time, cooked or not. Beano was no help at all. I find if I stick to eating 3 servings of veggies a day I'm fine, but if I don't eat veggies for a little while and then eat something like raw carrots and celery with dip.... just call me Chicago because it's windy city time :o

Ill eat practically any vege besides parsnips and I try to eat as much raw veggies as possible. If you eat vegetables raw try not to drink too much water... I only get bloated if I drink water with raw vegetables. Vegetables have enough water in them as it is, why add more?

Parsnips
 

Parsnips are one of my favorite vegetables. They are a challenge if you don't know how to cook them. Peel then slice. Par-boil till they begin to become tender. Drain and then sautee them in a small amount of Extra-virgin olive oil till they start to brown. Nothing else has their taste and texture.