How to Sneak More Fruits and Vegies Into Your Day

We all know the recommendation: eat 2 serves of fruit and 5 serves of vegetables … each … day. At first it sounds simple, but then you start trying to think of what to eat and it seems like an insurmountable task. One day would be fine, but every day? And why can’t it be 5 fruit, 2 vegie? Well that part’s easy. All that fruit means a whole lot of sugar, and in fact, vegetables help tone sugar cravings down.

A serving of vegetables equates to half a cup of cooked vegetables or 1 cup of raw salad vegetables and a serving of fruit is one medium piece (like apple or orange), half a cup of juice or half a cup of canned fruit.

Here are some clever ways to incorporate more servings of both in your daily diet. The best thing to remember is that if you include one serving of fruit or vegetables in every meal or snack, you’ll be on your way.

Fruits

• Slice some fruit onto your bowl of cereal. Bananas, strawberries, peaches and raspberries are all delicious!

• Try some fruit in your salad. Mandarin segments, strawberry slices, diced mango, passionfruit pulp and sliced apples all work beautifully, especially if you add a little cheddar or blue cheese.

• Make up some fruit ice blocks. Simply puree the fruit, fill ice cube trays or ice block moulds and freeze. You can even make instant, fat free, 100% fruit sorbet with Live It Up’s juicers. Keep some fruit in the freezer – grapes, bananas, mangoes, berries, stone fruits – and feed through the juicer using the mincing attachment. You get the fibre as well as the juice when you eat fruit this way.

• Prepare a big fruit salad and snack from it whenever you’re hungry. A small dollop of cream or some crème fraiche won’t go astray.

• Take a piece of fruit for lunch or morning or afternoon tea. You’d be surprised how enticing it can be when you’re hungry, or craving something juicy to have with your sandwich.

• Snack on dried fruit such as apricots, apples, pineapple and mango.

• Dip grapes and pieces of strawberry, apple and pear into flavoured yoghurt mixed with cottage cheese.

• Go all out and indulge with strawberries and bananas swimming in chocolate fondue.

• Tinned fruit with low fat custard is a quick and easy, not to mention delicious, dessert.

• A banana sandwich is not everyone’s cup of tea but some love it.

Vegetables

• Instead of a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, try a salad sandwich and ask for all of the vegetables you like: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, beetroot, carrot, onion, etc.

• Munch on crunchy raw vegies dipped in hummus, salsa or guacamole. Carrot and celery are the obvious choices but you can also go for broccoli and cauliflower florets, strips of capsicum, trimmed green beans and crunchy iceberg lettuce hearts.

• Ever tried popping frozen peas? Grab a handful and eat them before they defrost. They’re surprisingly enjoyable.

• Ditch the meat lovers’ special and try a vegetarian pizza. Or go gourmet and ask for the artichoke hearts, spinach, zucchini, sun dried tomatoes and olives.

• Process frozen vegetables in a food processor and add to recipes such as pasta sauce, casseroles, rissoles and meat loaf. Try carrot, celery, tomato, mushrooms, beans, spinach, pumpkin, onion or anything else that you like.

• Add other vegetables to mashed potatoes, such as pumpkin, carrot, cauliflower or cabbage.

• Go to Sizzler and pig out at the salad bar!

• Add vegetables to bread mixes, cakes and muffins. You’ve heard of carrot cake, try zucchini cake. There are pumpkin scones and you can add whatever you like to bread dough for extra interest.

• Cheese fondue is a fun way to enjoy chunks of vegetables. If you don’t like the idea of wine-infused, melted cheese, make up a pot of béchamel sauce with added cheese instead. It works the same!

• Use guacamole instead of butter or margarine.

• Vegetable soups go down easily, even if you don’t like the texture of particular vegies. Blend or puree for extra palatability.

Vitamin and fibre benefits

Rich in Vitamin A
Apricots, carrots, kale, leafy lettuces, mango, pumpkin, rockmelon, romaine lettuce, spinach, sweet potato, winter squash.

Rich in Vitamin C
Apricots, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, capsicum, cauliflower, chillies, grapefruit, honeydew, kiwi fruit, mango, orange, pineapple, plum, potato (with skin on), rockmelon, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes, watermelon.

Good source of fibre
Apple, banana, blackberries, blueberries, brussels sprouts, carrots, cherries, cooked beans and peas, dates, figs, grapefruit, kiwi fruit, orange, pear, prunes, raspberries, spinach, strawberries, sweet potato.

Article Source: http://www.therepozitory.com.au

Gina Lofaro runs Live It Up Lifestyle Products, an online retail store offering lots of wonderful items such as coffee machines, juicers, dehydrators and more to help improve and enhance your lifestyle. Visit www.liveitup.net.au or freecall 1800 227 004.

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