5 ways to eat more veggies

Everyone agrees that we should be eating plenty of vegetables, and that most of us do not get enough.  Here are five simple suggestions for eating more veggies.  Pick one that you think might work for you, try it for a week or two, and see what happens.

1) Make 2 veggies instead of 1
Most of us who cook make one vegetable to accompany our meal.  An easy way to add veggies to your diet is to make two instead.  One approach is to make two separate vegetable dishes, each with different seasonings and different tastes.  Another approach is to add a second vegetable to the dish you are already preparing.  (For Example:  If you are making sauteed broccoli, put in the amount of broccoli that you were planning to make, and then add cauliflower.)

2) Join a CSA or get vegetables delivered to your home/work
Joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is an excellent way to get a variety of fresh vegetables every week.  You get whatever veggies the farmer harvests that week, which means there are lots of opportunities to try new vegetables.  In urban areas, it is also possible to get weekly veggies delivered to your door.  An example in NYC is Urban Organic and its Boston equivalent is Boston Organics. If you have a fridge full of fresh produce, you're bound to eat more.

Single? Get it delivered to your workplace, and split it with a coworker.

3) Get experimental with salad
Many of us get tired with salad because we make it the same every time.  If you try some creative and funky salads, you'll have a lot more fun eating them.  Epicurious has some fun ones, and my favorite food writer, Mark Bittman, has created this list of 101 salads.

4) Roast a huge pile of veggies
Roast them in the oven with olive oil and some spices.  You can easily do this while you are watching TV or lounging around your house.  The majority of the work is really in chopping, and then you can do whatever you want while they roast.  When they're done, eat what you want, and then put the rest in the fridge for snacking throughout the week.

5) Just add bacon
If you're an omnivore, I'm pretty sure that you'd eat more veggies if they were cooked with bacon.  The key to this being a healthful choice is choosing really high quality bacon, so that you are getting the right proportion of omega-3 to omega-6 fats.  A pig raised on a pasture, eating food pigs are supposed to eat, will provide you with the kind of fat you need to stay healthy.  A pig raised in a pig factory that's been fed industrial corn and pumped with antibiotics will give you lots of things you don't need--unhealthy fat and an immune system that is resistant to antibiotics if you need them.  Check out my favorite bacon-veggie recipe here.


Good luck and happy vegging!