All About Veggies

by | Dec 19, 2010 | Health Habits, Nutrition Support, Uncategorized

It's all about veggies

Eating healthy is all about the amount of non-starchy veggies we eat with every meal. Even if we use a 9 inch, 10 inch, 11 inch dish or larger the more space non-starchy veggies take on our plates, the better. Go with a 9 or 10 inch plate though. The support for this statement is that non-starchy veggies represent complex carbohydrates (carbs), a delivery system for dietary fiber, carbs for energy as well as a variety of essential nutrients.  Complex carbs found in non-starchy veggies slowly release sugar into our bloodstream. This is great news for diabetics – no blood sugar spikes. Good health begins with the foods we eat. The quality (low-fat, low-sugar, low-salt), the quantity, and the proportion of each food group on our plate do matter. Exercise, dietary supplements, mediation are secondary in importance.

So, the question is, “why don’t we eat more non-starchy veggies?”

Well, many non-starchy veggies start out bitter or leave a bitter aftertaste. According to taste scientists, our brains are hard-wired to consider bitter taste to represent poisonous food. So when babies are given bitter veggies they tend to spit it out instinctively. Not enough effort is made to cook non-starchy veggies to replace the bitter taste with a savory, appealing taste.  Many cooks heap cheese, sugar, salt, fat-back or some other type of pork onto the veggie.  That is the wrong answer!

Herbs & Spices

The right answer is cook with more herbs and spices.

At one dinner party that my wife hosted, she stir-fried broccoli using fat-free chicken stock, ginger, and other ingredients. Ginger was the hero ingredient. One of our guests said, “Wow, you didn’t even have to add cheese to the broccoli.” Well, our position is cheese is not an herb or spice. Neither is pork in the form of bacon, fat-back, and ham hocks…I’m just saying. To eat healthy, find great recipes that use herb and spices to:

  • Enhance the flavor of non-starchy veggies
  • Avoid adding unnecessary calories and cholesterol to your meal

You can have a look at some great healthy recipes here right away!