Zan

Hey!

Everywhere I look, it seems like I'm not eating enough fruits and vegetables in my diet. I only get my veggie sources from dinner... and sometimes there isn't an abundance of them. So, I need more "fruits and vegetables."

This question might seem silly to you, but...

If I just add more fruits to my diet (say i make a smoothie out of pears/grapes/banana/kiwi/apricot, w.e. and have that with lunch), and not add any extra vegetables, is that good enough? I don't really like veggies, but I do like fruit! Is there a real nutritional difference between Vs and Fs?

Thanks!

ModoVincere

considering that I have no idea how much fruit or veggies you are eating in a given day, I can't say that you are or aren't getting enough. Generally speaking though, most people should eat more fruits and veggies.
Nutritionally speaking, what's the difference between fruits and veggies? That's an entire book. Easy answer is fruits have more sugar. But each fruit and veggie has its own nutritional profile. Variety is the answer. Make sure you get a good variety of both in your diet, and try to get 8-10 servings of veggies/day (more than the minimum suggestion of 5) and 1 to 3 servings of fruit. That way, you should be getting all the fiber and vitamins you need.

Lamp-Shade

Put soy sauce and chili powder on your broccoli and HTFU.

Richard Cranium

Yeah.

Have you considered adding a few frozen vegs to a meaty soup? Or mixing frozen vegs into a cheese sauce?

coldfeet

+1

I like to add a few frozen baby Brussels sprouts to a canned beef and veggie stew ( Campbells )

Jarery

Green Smoothies

If you can get past the green color, they taste like a less sweet fruit smoothie, and you can get a LOT of vegetables into you that you normally wouldnt eat. Like Kale, collard greens, spinach, celery, etc. A lot better for you than just a fruit smoothie.

hoverfly

If you can only get a few veggies in, go for the really high nutritional stuff like any leafy greens (spinach, kale, collards, chard, etc.), sweet potato or yam, broccoli (steamed), carrots.

You could hit the salad bar at lunch and skip the lettuce (use spinach instead). Or, have a V8 type beverage (some of the sweet V8 varieties also have vegetables.)

One way to get vegetables without really noticing is to shred them and bake them into muffins--this works with carrot, zucchini, pumpkin, parsnip, etc. You can also do blends: parsnip + pumpkin + chard.

I like to throw cubed sweet potato, squash, rutabaga, and parsnip in with cubed white potatoes (in a home fries "hash" sort of blend), or you could mash some boiled parsnip and rutabaga in with mashed potatoes.

note: white potatoes, corn, etc., (the starchy stuff) really aren't considered "vegetables" (they're more like starches.)

Zan

okay okay...

so you think spinach would cover most of what I need? My mom knows how to make this spinach salad that is really good. I'll ask her to teach me how to make it that way, and I could eat it as a snack or something when I'm in between meals, or it could compliment another meal.

ModoVincere

variety....you need a variety of fruits and veggies.

Holly

I usually eat a large spinach salad or mixed greens with every dinner and I'll also add tomatoes to it as well as mushrooms to get a little extra veggie.

I always put dried or fresh fruit on my cereal in the morning and I drink a glass of oj every morning too as well as eating a banana after my cereal.

Some days I'll snack on a raw veggie mixture of carrots, celery, cucumber slices, raw mushrooms.

I always eat an apple with lunch as well.

Carbonfiberboy 

Drink a glass of real 100% fruit juice with both breakfast and lunch. Have a piece of fruit before breakfast while you're waking up, and another piece after lunch. At dinner, 1/2 your plate should be vegetables. That's 8-10 servings right there, and it's easy.

fordmanvt

Do onion rings count?

Machka 

Look up the nutritional contents of various fruits and veggies on Nutrition Data or wherever ... and yes, variety is the key.

Enthalpic

What would your mom say?

When I was young my mom would snap at me to put more veggies on my plate and I would reply "potatoes are vegetables." It didn't work.

Zan

how do i get by with only 3-5 servings a day...

Garfield Cat

You can make a smoothie and add a few leaves of spinach or romaine lettuce, or a cucumber. I think mostly the veggies have minerals and vitamins. Those minerals are similar to what makes up electrolytes.

https://www.nutritiondata.com/

ModoVincere

getting by is not the same as being the best you can be.

Tri-man24

Anybody have some good recipes for fruit smoothies?

Jynx

info or a recipe?

what do you just throw a whole bunch of veggies in a blender?

Garfield Cat

Some fruits don't mix well with some veggies. I tried to go with really bitter and dark green into a fruit smoothie and it tasted terrible. The mustard greens are one of them. So I don't over do it on that one. If you check nutrition data web site, at least you will find out that these dark leafy veggies have a lot of minerals, something that fruits don't have a lot of. Bananas are an exception with its potassium.

My personal choice is to go anti oxidant with the fruits because when you work out, those free radicals are what you want to keep in line. By adding melons to these anti oxidants, you have something complementary: anti oxidant and natural sweet and tasty.

The three anti oxidants I use are blueberries, acai, and pomegranate juice. Some parts of the USA may not have acai. I use Sambazon brand of Acai and its the puree frozen bars. The blueberries I use are frozen and the pomegranate is Landers brand because its cheap.

If I go for a very long ride like 70 miles plus, I blend in dates from Costco. I think its called Medjool. That really makes it sweet and the dates plus the bananas are very good together. I had date shakes from all over Southern California, even Palm Springs, Coachella, Indio, and they're all the same. They lack sufficient dates. They're watered down. By making it home made you will actually taste the flavor of the dates. But beware the anti oxidants flavor will overwhelm the dates. The only thing you will have left is the texture of the dates. I really like that soft and smooth texture of dates with bananas.

The three melons I use are water melon, cantaloupe, honeydew. The water melon is the least desirable because its way too watery. If I had my choice, I would have smoothies at all the support stops on long rides.

Apples are supposed to be good antioxidants too plus they're very sweet. Parts of California have temperatures that dip low enough to grow apples and I like going there to pick up fresh apple cider. Boy I tell you, ice cold cider after a workout is really something. Sure beats Accelerate, G2, or anything else.

Zan

i use pear + grapes to water down my smoothies... some fruit, like bananas, tend to make the smoothies too paste-like. The dates are something I should try out. I usually eat them before I go to bed to... regulate.

As for the recipes for smoothies: I just throw in whatever I have around the house... using pear + grapes to water it down if it gets too thick. If I don't have those, I'll throw ice cubes into the blender.

hoverfly

Nah, but it's a good start -- keep thinking of ways to integrate other veggies as you go :)

Garfield Cat

You might try going to that nutritiondata.com web site and do the search on various types of vegetables to see what they're like nutritionwise and then choose based on your region and time of year. Even though romaine lettuce isn't as "green leafy" as spinach, I still use it in my smoothies.

rumrunn6

my brother keeps a nutrition diary and marks every item he eats and if he falls short he is sure to make it up by the end of the day. personally I'm lucky if I get 3 fruits and 3 veggies a day

stsmytherie

There are lots of different kinds of veggies, with all differnt flavors and consistencies, so not liking veggies covers a lot of ground.

Couple common reasons I've seen for people not liking veggies:

• Haven't tried many different kinds
• Haven't had/can't find fresh veggies
• Don't know how to prepare properly

It's OK to blame your parents for not knowing how to shop and cook (and for a lot of other things too -- try it, feels good to shift the blame ;-) ).

I happen to like veggies in general, but when we started getting a regular farm basket, there were a lot of things we didn't know how to prepare. Here's a great book with all sorts of recipes for various greens you'll encounter in the summer. We haven't had a bad meal yet out of this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Greens-Gloriou.../dp/0312141084

One of my favorites not in here is roasted root veggies: cut potatoes, sweet potato, butternut squash, and/or turnips into steak fry slices. pour a little olive oil over them (like on the fancy tv shows). season to taste (salt, pepper, cayenne pepper if you like). In the oven at 425 for 45 minutes. They should be browned around the edges and soft inside, without getting burnt.