Your Hero, Vegetables...

The single most important thing you can do for your health is to eat more vegetables. Not fruit, but vegetables. It’s really that simple.  

Full of nutrients and fibre, we’ve been fed the message that we need 5+ servings a day. But I encourage you to aim for more than that. Try to make vegetables the star of the show at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I know, it seems absurd but it’s often very easy to achieve. Even at breakfast! Try eggs on toast with some spinach, mushrooms, sauerkraut or even a salad on the side. Add spinach, cucumber, carrot or beetroot to your smoothie. By making a few small adjustments that help us prioritise vegetables as the key ingredients in every meal, our health changes radically.

At the moment, there is a strong trend toward vegetarian or vegan diets. But it’s very easy to be an unhealthy vegetarian - picture lots of dairy, heavy grain based carbs and fried foods. These diets can also tend to be quite low protein. Combined, these factors are a recipe for digestive chaos and blood sugar imbalance. 

I prefer to encourage people to move towards a diet that is heavily based on fresh, vital vegetables. With some fruit, whole grains, good quality fats, meat, fish and eggs on the side. Do what feels right as far as your protein choices are concerned, but be sure to focus on fresh vegetables. Salads, soups, casseroles, steamed veggies. It doesn’t matter what form they take, the more varied the better!

If possible, try to predominantly eat seasonal fruits and veggies. Eating foods that naturally grow and ripen in the current season means that not only will those foods have the highest possible nutrient content, but they’ll also be most appropriate for the balance of your body during that season. For instance, salad greens that grow most easily in summer are most appropriate for us to eat in summer too! They are cooling and cleansing and therefore suited to our bodies when the heat from the sun balances out the cooling nature of these foods.

Eating seasonally is often more cost effective - especially when you shop from markets or if that’s not possible, shop from your local fruit and veggie shop (see our article on eating organically). Always buy from NZ suppliers. Anything that is imported is likely to have been picked before it is ripe and is usually quite old before it reaches our shops, making it’s nutrient content much less than optimal.  

So, start planning your meals with veggies as the base. It will quickly become second nature and before long, every meal you have will be packed with vegetable goodness.