veggies | Nutrition for Real Humans

April 24, 2021April 23, 2021

How to eat more vegetables: barrier edition

a blurry photo of a glass bowl of colorful bell peppers.

There’s a bunch of suggestions out there for ways to eat more vegetables. Today we’re focusing on the best way to eat more vegetables FOR YOU.

Not in general, not just how anyone can, but what about you?

What will help YOU eat more vegetables?

By the way, you can use this same process for any goal you want to work on, (doesn’t even have to be nutrition-related) so if you’ve got another goal that comes to mind, just read [your goal here] instead of [eat more vegetables].

1) Start with a question: Why do you want to eat more vegetables?

To get more fiber? To lower your blood sugar? To help you lose weight? Because you want to eat fewer animal products? Because you want to broaden your palate? To have beautiful Instagram salads? Because someone told you to?

Why you want to eat more vegetables may help you narrow down the best way to go about doing it.

If it’s to get more fiber, look up some high fiber vegetables to start with – or see how many of your favorite vegetables you need to eat to reach your fiber goal.

If it’s to lower blood sugar, make sure the vegetables you are choosing will actually help you lower your blood sugar.

If it’s to broaden your palate, you will want to choose a variety of vegetables – maybe quality over quantity is your goal.

If you’re not sure why, or you’re doing it just because someone told you to, take some time to figure out why you want to.

If you know why, it’s easier to maintain long term motivation.

2) Ask the next question: What keeps you from eating as many vegetables as you would like?

Really think about this.

Is it that you get bored of eating broccoli and carrots all the time?

Is it because you hate mushy-textured boiled vegetables?

Is it because you’re intimidated by cooking vegetables?

Is it because you hate washing your cutting board?

Is it because you don’t have a place to store fresh vegetables or they are difficult to afford and go bad too fast?

Is it because your family doesn’t eat veggies and you don’t want to be/are tired of being the only one eating them?

Make sure you know your barrier (or barriers). Only then you can move onto the next step.

Guess what, it’s another question:

3) How can you solve the problem?

Brainstorming any and all ideas can be helpful, but make sure that whatever solution you choose is something you can actually picture yourself doing. Something that’s realistic and might even seem easy or too simple. Successfully completing a goal (even a small one) can propel you toward the next one, so choose a step that you are as likely as possible to do

If you’re bored of the same veggies, can you pick one new vegetable to try each time you go to the store or sign up for a CSA near you?

If you hate mushy veggies, are you ok with eating crunchy raw veggies or crispy roasted ones? (Lots of different ways to eat veggies can be found at itsavegworldafterall.com)

If you’re intimidated by cooking vegetables, can you start with those microwave-in-bag vegetables? Can you buy pre-chopped vegetables if you really hate chopping or washing your cutting board?

If you can’t store much fresh produce, can you look up some recipes for ways to use canned or frozen vegetables? Are there resources you can connect with to help you afford some more vegetables? (In the U.S. you can always call 211 to find out what local services are available near you)

Can you get your family to look up some veggie recipes that appeal to them so they’ll get involved and be more likely to eat them? Here are 100 ways you can get kids involved in choosing and preparing food

Very important note: Choosing a very achievable and realistic step may not bring you to your ideal yet- your ultimate goal. That’s ok. The important thing is that this steps brings you closer to your ultimate goal

4) Do it.

Do the thing (or things) that will make eating vegetables easier for you.

DO IT!

Then, hey look at that! Either you’re eating more vegetables now, or you’ve realized that there were barriers you didn’t initially think of that you can now figure out how to overcome because you know what they are. Either way, you’ve moved forward toward your goal.

If you are stuck on any of these steps, a dietitian (like me :D) should be able to help you figure them out 🙂

Also sometimes just talking through these steps with a good listener (even if that’s your dog, your toddler, or your favorite houseplant) can help you realize what you already know, if you know what I mean.

What goals are you working on? What goal setting strategies work for you? What are the barriers you’ve identified? And how are you overcoming them?

June 11, 2020July 3, 2020

Simple, easy tomato soup recipe: Only 5 ingredients

Jump straight to the instructions

Why should you make this tomato soup?

It’s a great way to get a serving (or two) of vegetables
It goes really well with grilled cheese.
It can be a great throw-together-from-the-pantry dish
If you make it yourself, you can control the flavor, texture, and the nutrition!
This recipe is really flexible so you can make it how you like it
Think of how accomplished you’ll feel as you sip that nutritious soup!

grilled cheese and tomato soup in a mug — I always like grilled cheese with my tomato soup. This one is slightly burnt but it was still good.

Just a heads-up: this is not a particularly quick recipe. It requires time for the onions and tomatoes to cook down, probably 30 minutes at minimum to get a nice flavor. But it does not require a lot of active time. Most of the time you can be doing something else you want to do as long as you’re making sure the kitchen isn’t burning down. Anyway, if you’re still here:

The minimum ingredients you will need are:

can of tomatoes, chopped onions and garlic

Canned tomatoes
Chopped onion
Minced garlic
Salt (not pictured)
Cooking oil or butter or margarine – some sort of fat to cook your onions and garlic in

There are some extras you can add to change the flavor or texture to your liking: spices like basil, oregano, chili flakes, chili powder, cumin, pepper, etc.; sugar, broth, milk, or cream. But these aren’t necessary to make a basic soup. I’ll let you know when these would come into the recipe.

To make this recipe even easier, you can buy frozen, pre-chopped onions and minced garlic in a jar. (Not sponsored, just want to make your life easier)

Heat a little oil (or your preferred cooking fat) in a pot over low heat. Add your onions and a pinch of salt. The salt helps build the flavor of the soup and helps draw out the water from the onions so they cook to where we want them faster. (Learned that from SORTEDfood)

Cook those onions on low heat for a long time (like 10-20 minutes) until they are nice and golden and soft. Stir occasionally, but not that often. While you’re waiting for them to cook, you can mince your garlic or wash dishes or read a book (just don’t forget about them)

Once your onions are nice and cooked, add your garlic and any herbs or spices you will use. I used a generous sprinkle of dried basil and a bit of oregano here. Let them all cook together for just about a minute. If you cook garlic like this too long it will burn and get bitter.

Add your canned tomatoes and stir to combine everything. Then turn up the heat to high and put a lid on. Let it heat up until it starts simmering (occasional bubbles), then turn it down again and keep the lid on.

At this point, the longer you simmer it, the longer the flavors will meld together. I simmered mine for probably around 20-25 minutes. You can simmer longer if you like (just don’t let it cook so long that all the liquid goes away and it burns), or shorter if you like. The tomatoes are already cooked – they just need to be heated up.

Once it’s simmered, you have options. If you like a chunky tomato soup, just taste it to make sure it doesn’t need more salt, sugar, or spices of your choosing and it’s ready to eat!

If you want a smooth, creamier soup, puree it with an immersion blender or a regular blender (careful, HOT), adding water or broth or cream to get it to the thickness you like (I used water for this one).

Adding milk can be more tricky as the acid from the tomatoes might curdle it. Warm your milk up separately, then add a little tomato soup to the milk, stir it in, then add a little more tomato to the milk. Repeat this until no more tomato will fit in your milk container, then slowly add the milk and tomato mixture back to the pot.

I’ve also read you can add 1/2 tsp baking soda to the tomatoes to neutralize the acid so it won’t curdle the milk, but I haven’t tried that.

Finally, taste! If it’s too sour, you can add a little more salt (believe it or not it helps balance out the sour taste) or some sugar.

Enjoy!

Just the instructions (no pictures)

Chop onion and mince garlic (I used a small onion and 1 large clove garlic)
Heat a bit of oil/butter/margarine over low heat in a pot
Add the onions and a pinch of salt and let cook until the onions are very soft and yellow (at least 10 minutes)
Add the garlic and any spices you are using and cook for 1 more minute
Add canned tomatoes and stir (I used two 14-oz cans)
Turn the heat up to high and cover the pot with a lid, but stay there and watch!
Once it starts to simmer (occasional bubbles), turn the heat down to low again. Keep the lid on.
Let it simmer for as long as you want, but at least until the tomatoes are heated through (I recommend 20 minutes)
If you like chunky soup – taste and add more salt, sugar, spices as needed!
If you like smooth soup, blend until it’s as smooth as you want, adding water, broth, or cream until it is the thickness you want (see note about adding milk above)
Taste and add more salt, sugar, spices as needed!

April 30, 2020April 29, 2020

How To Dad has got it right

Listen, if you haven’t yet watched How to Dad‘s YouTube Channel, you are missing deadpan humor, adorable kids, and surprisingly helpful parenting tips. Checking it out is worth a few minutes of your time – most of his videos are less than 5 minutes long and they always make my day. But today, I’m going to talk as a dietitian about what I like in this video. ↓

Watch this first 🙂

This video illustrates so many true things about teaching kids to eat vegetables – intentionally or unintentionally I’m not sure – but let’s break it down. How to Dad is trying to convince his toddler to eat a plate of broccoli and carrots with varying amounts of success.

She starts out by biting a carrot, and then putting it back on the plate without eating any

This is normal and good and it is how kids explore new foods. Any exposure to new foods is a step in the right direction. Licking, biting, touching, or even just smelling a new (or less liked) food gives a child more experience with a food and means they are becoming more interested or less scared of it. Even if they spit it out, it’s still progress. (And teaching them to politely spit out food can take some of the pressure out of trying new foods)

When the vegetables are covered with cheese or ketchup, she just eats the cheese and ketchup

There’s nothing wrong with using other preferred foods to make vegetables more palatable, but know it won’t always work. Kids will eat what they want. Same goes for hiding veggies – it might work, but kids are also pretty smart and might just see right through it.

“Pounding the table” doesn’t work

In this video it results in oh my goodness tiny adorable table pounding! But in real life, ordering or forcing kids to eat vegetables is more likely to result in a power struggle than learning to eat vegetables. They might eat them, but they’re more likely to view it as a chore than to learn to enjoy eating them, and who likes chores?

They play with their food

This has varying degrees of success – in fact most of the play doesn’t result in eating any vegetables, not until the end of the video. However, it does have the advantage of increasing exposure to and familiarity with the food (see point 1)

She eats the broccoli after watching her dad eat it

This is HUGE. Kids learn by watching and imitating you. If they never see you eating vegetables, they’re much less likely to want to eat them. On the other hand, if they see you regularly eating vegetables along with all other foods like it’s no big deal, they’re likely to grow up learning that vegetables are just something you eat, like hamburgers or toast.

She is having fun

Obviously these two have a positive relationship. Even when the dad is “pounding the table” she thinks its a fun game. And every interaction, even the ones that don’t result in eating vegetables, is happy. Obviously it’s unrealistic to expect you to have 100% happy moments with your kids (especially with a toddler), but making mealtimes an overall positive environment by having positive conversations, promoting good table etiquette, not creating power struggles, etc. can make a big difference in promoting an overall healthy relationship with food, not to mention trying new foods.

She eats the most vegetables when How to Dad isn’t even paying attention to her

The food is there in front of her, but there’s no pressure on her, and no one’s trying to get her to do anything.

There are a lot of attempts and not a lot of actually eating vegetables

Studies show kids may need to be exposed to a food up to 20 times before they even try it, not to mention liking it or eating it regularly. Being exposed to a food can eating it, but it can also include playing with the food, helping prepare the food, and smelling it, touching it or licking it (see the first point). It may seem like kids will never eat new foods, but don’t give up! If they never see it or interact with it, they will surely never learn to eat it!

I know it can be hard and frustrating, but you can do it! They can do it! You’re just helping them practice the skill of eating new foods, which like any skill, takes practice!

In summary, what should you learn from this?

Keep serving the vegetables, keep eating the vegetables (and let your kids see you doing it), don’t make it a big deal, be prepared that it might take a long time, and know that that’s ok.

Note this also applies to any other food that you want your kids to learn to eat, just substitute “fish”, “beans” or “croissants” for vegetables in the article above 🙂

If you’re looking for more information and encouragement on this topic, I also recommend checking out feedinglittles.com or following @feedinglittles . Great accurate information (they are a dietitian and occupational feeding therapist team), practical tips, and overall great positive attitude!

Want to read even more? Here are more resources:

https://www.eatright.org/food/nutrition/eating-as-a-family/end-mealtime-battles

https://www.eatright.org/food/nutrition/eating-as-a-family/keep-kids-out-of-the-clean-plate-club

https://www.eatright.org/health/pregnancy/breast-feeding/introducing-new-flavors-to-babies

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666317308784

https://www.romper.com/p/how-many-times-does-a-child-have-to-try-a-food-before-they-like-it-more-than-you-think-17999317

https://www.healthyfamiliesbc.ca/home/articles/preventing-picky-eating-toddlers

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17635306

https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/how-to-feed/childhood-feeding-problems/