How to Eat More Vegetables: Tip #14
We all know we should eat more vegetables. But how, how do we do that, really? What real-life tips and ideas work? How can we build our lives around the healthiest of all foods, vegetables? Most Saturdays, the 'veggie evangelist' shares a practical tip or idea from her own experience, from her readers' experience, from other bloggers.
Today's image, of course, comes from the new logo unveiled by the USDA this week. It's the new "plate logo" that divides a plate in half for vegetables and fruit, the other half into protein and grains, with a glass for dairy. Check the new website, ChooseMyPlate.gov and click the five areas, see the easy lists of what fits into each one.
So what's today's tip?
How to Eat More Vegetables
TIP #14Imagine a dinner plate, fill half the plate with vegetables and fruits.
There's been a lively conversation about the new logo on Kitchen Parade's Facebook page. It's pretty of course and perhaps over-simplified. But I'm intrigued by its potential usefulness.
Last night's chicken sandwich (recipe to come, it's a good one!), for example, was "vegged up" -- vegetables in the sandwich itself and the sauce too. Still, my plate would have turned out maybe 20% vegetables, 40% protein and 40% grains. To "fix" the proportions, I could have made an open-face sandwich, added a side salad and down-sized the chicken. Building a healthier plate, it wouldn't have been that hard --
SO LET'S TRY SOMETHING, shall we? I'd like you to pick a recent real-life meal and imagine its actual proportions on a plate. Then ask yourself, would it fit the new guidelines? What could you do to change the proportions? Share your thoughts in the comments --
HEALTHY KIDS Who's seen the healthy food plate from the blog Super Healthy Kids? It's a divided melamine plate, a small spot for protein, a small spot for grains and half the plate, yes, half the plate, for vegetables and fruits. (This is NOT a sponsored post, I saw the plates a few months ago, have been meaning to mention them. The time is right!)
TIP #15
Coming next week!
MORE TIPS Watch for a new tip most Saturdays. Never miss a one! If you love vegetables, or would like to learn more easy ways to cook vegetables (plus these weekly tips), be sure to sign up for a free e-mail subscription.
ALL THE TIPS SO FAR How to Eat More Vegetables
VEGETABLESPOTTING Recent Vegetable Recipes from Favorite Food Bloggers (updated almost every day)
How To Chime In
Readers & Bloggers, Both: Here's how to participate, I hope you will!Eat more vegetables! A Veggie Venture is the home of 'veggie evangelist' Alanna Kellogg and is the award-winning source of free vegetable recipes, quick, easy, and yes, delicious. Start with the famous Alphabet of Vegetables.
© Copyright Kitchen Parade 2011
© Copyright Kitchen Parade 2011
The healthy food plate is an excellent image. It's easy to imagine or to actually see a plate with half filled with vegetables and fruits. I think this will help me fine-tune my diet to be healthier. Now if I could just cut out snacks....
ReplyDeleteLove these tips! This is such an important topic, and it's so much easier to implement that people think! I think it's so wonderful that the government is at least making an effort to educate the public about better nutrition. This new plate may not be perfect, but it is a huge improvement over the old food pyramid. I grew up in Kansas City, and even though we always had vegetables, meat and grains were definitely the main portions on my family's plates. I think one of the reasons many people may not eat enough vegetables could be that they don't know how to prepare vegetables in a tasty way. For example, many of my friends say that they don't like beets or cauliflower, but their parents have only ever used canned beets and steamed cauliflower. When I feed them roasted beets and roasted cauliflower, they love it! Familiarizing people with recipes like the ones you have listed on this website could really help make vegetables more common on the dinner table.
ReplyDeleteI personally think it's better to have 1/2 of the plate be veggies; 1/4 protein, and 1/4 grains.
ReplyDeleteEat fruit separately for better digestion...
I love this post and so excited to have found your blog and follow along. I actually just wrote a nice post on this same subject, please do stop by and let me know what you think.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Heidi altho that's just personal preference I suppose. Also, I think protein should most often be the meatless variety.