More Vegetables for Better Health and Wellness

The bulk of any Primal/Paleo meal should be vegetables. As stated in my article about the Primal Blueprint Food Pyramid, your vegetables should be diverse and of many different colors. You want to “eat the rainbow,” as they say. These various colors of fruits and vegetables are a result of the chemicals held within them. They give us an array of nutrients with high antioxidant values. So each day, we want to provide our bodies with a “rainbow” of micronutrients! What follows are 5 ways to eat more vegetables every day, as explained in How to Be Well, by Dr. Frank Lipman.

Shop and Prep your Vegetables

After buying your vegetables, set some time aside to wash and chop/slice them up for the week ahead. That way you can make colorful salads and stir-fry veggies in no time, and have a variety of healthy snacks on hand every day.

Roast your Vegetables

On your prep day, you can make one or two batches of roasted vegetables (sweet potatoes, beets, squash, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.) with a healthy fat for the days ahead.

Make a Soup

Blend steamed vegetables with your homemade broth and have that in the fridge for the week.

Replace Pasta with Spirals and Strands

Dr. Frank Lipman explains: “Make noodles from spiralized zucchini, winter squash, sweet potato, and more….You can also roast a spaghetti squash and scoop out the strands….While you’re at it, replace rice with the cauliflower kind – it also stands in as the basis for pizza crust.”

Stock your Freezer

It is easy to have different bags of frozen organic vegetables in your freezer, ready to be used. If you make a large batch of vegetable soup, you can freeze some of it too.

In Summary

Keep in mind that some vegetables may not work well for everyone. It is up to you to experiment and see how your body responds to each food you eat. It is better to buy locally grown fresh produce and organic. To know exactly how to pick vegetables, you can check my blog post on What to Buy Organic. A great book to read on how to select and prepare vegetables (and fruits) is Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimum Health, by Jo Robinson. How (& Why) to Eat More Vegetables, by Dr. Thomas Cowan is an awesome read too!

Happy 4th of July!

Reference

Lipman, Frank M D. How to Be Well: The 6 Keys to a Happy and Healthy Life. Houghton Mifflin, 2019, pp. 58–9.

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