Help me eat more veg please!

[weatherall]

Hi I've been directed here from another thread where I was worried about my health as I eat almost no veg at all. (At most one small portion pwk)

I didn't realise this was so unusual or so unhealthy. I eat fruit and lots of dairy and wholemeal bread so I thought that was ok.

We are really broke atm and DP is a vegetarian so we don't eat (can't afford) much meat. Meals are often carb and dairy based eg pizza, mac cheese, toasties.

I was surprised on the other thread that people were saying they actually like veg. To me they are something I tolerate because I know I should. After spending 2 days thinking about this the only examples of veg I like are: garlic, mushrooms, pickled baby beets, home made tziki (cucumber), onions in things eg mac cheese, home made chips with skins on, tomato sauce in pizza and spag bol.

Veg I don't find too bad are: raw or roasted carrot, really buttery sprouts, blended homemade lentil soup (carrot and tomato), red pepper on pizza.

If it's on a plate in front of me I'll eat baby spinach, green beans, lettuce (not rocket) but I don't 'like' them.

I don't like lots of flavours or textures mixed together. I don't like black pepper, salad dressings, chilli, anything spicy/hot/strong.

So what can people suggest?

I have veg at breakfast

I have omlette with vegetables in it. But I love veg so it's an easy choice for me.

Not sure if someone has linked to this already but this MN thread has some great soup recipes

Next time you have macaroni cheese: Buy a broccoli, steam it (or boil, but steaming is best), then when its soft, chop it into very small pieces so it looks like broccoli crumbs, and stir it into the cheese sauce.

Salad dressing recipe
www.onceuponachef.com/2010/08/caesar-salad-dressing.html

Ranch dressing is veggie usually so you might prefer that

Do you like spaghetti? You can buy a vegetable spaghetti maker from Amazon or Lakeland, I think you feed in the courgette, carrot etc and chop them up into a coleslaw or steam them.

Or juice veg.

If you use a vegetable peeler you can make courgette into pasta like strips, then just stir fry them in a pan.

Try bbcgoodfood for recipes for soups and vegetable sides.
A few things I do is;
I always add grated carrot and courgette to tomato based sauced.
I never do mash with just potatoes. I always combine it with another veg like carrots, some butternut squash or parsnip and if I can bothered, stir leeks cooked in a little bit of butter into it.
If I'm roasting potatoes, I always roast another veg too. Sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, swedes, butternut squash all work well.
If I'm boiling potatoes, I add some green beans or rubber beans for the last couple of minutes. Or wilt some spinch through at the end. Stir in some butter or a bit if cream or a vinaigrette.
I know you don't like strong flavours but do you like kormas? You can make some lovely veg in a coconut based korma sauce with rice.

2 suggestions:

don't overcook, and

try juicing.

Oh and I had some pea and mint soup the other week and it was one of the nicest things I've ever eaten.

I'd say don't worry too much about incorporating into meals. I frequently serve a side veg with meals that you wouldn't normally have extra veg with, for example last night I made a veggie spag bol and served it with some roasted courgette (am growing courgette and have a glut so it gets served with most meals!)

You can have all kinds of things with macaroni cheese - add cooked brocoli and cauli to the sauce, have with roast veg, or a side salad. Or grill a tomato to have with your beans on toast?

You can get bags of 10 minute minestrone mix in Tesco. It's tiny bits of pasta, barley etc. When I make minestrone, I sweat off some onion and garlic, add other veg (pepper, cougette, green beans, carrot), then a carton of passata, the bag of mix and some extra veg stock. Simmer for 10 mins. DS really likes it, especially with a bit of cheese grated on top. You could easily add a tin of beans too.

Another trick is to get some delicious stuff like sugar snap peas and baby sweetcorn, and put them in a little pot to pick on through the day.
I know they are expensive, but it could be instead of coffees out, or fizzy drinks etc.

i buy frozen spinach and add just one ball to dishes,
ie. cauliflower cheese.

or i guess you could the spinach to macaroni cheese, spaghetti.

Veg for breakfast - scrambled eggs with spinach/ mushrooms/ tomatoes/ leftover roasted veg.

Roast root veg is lovely - takes about an hour (parsnips, squash, carrots) Add some haloumi chucnks for proetin.

Last week I concocted a "red roast" warm salad thing - roasted cherry tomatoes, red onions and red peppers, sprinkle with feta.

Try grating courgette into your pasta while it's cooking - you'll hardly know it's there.

And you could try cauliflower rice or cauli-crust pizza recipes. They're geared for low-carbers, but there's no reason why they shouldnt have a wider audience.

Cheese sauce - on cauliflower, broccoli, green beans.

Do you like coleslaw? You can throw all kinds of veg into homemade ones, and they go great with things like the toasties you would usually eat.

Roasted courgette tastes amazing and different to that when raw or stir fried. You should give it a go. Roasted cauliflower is great too.

I had my roast veg lasagne tonight. DP finely chopped the veg so I didn't notice it.

It tasted nice and I would have it again. I dinnt feel like I'd eaten a plate of veg.

Having pasta two nights in a row felt odd though. I'm actually not that keen on pasta and I feel like it's unhealthy and empty calories so I don't want to be eating it more than twice a week.

My meals are often bread based. Eg toasties. Or flesh and chips eg fish/chicken/ham/burgers. How can I add veg without it just being the boring boiled veg I remember my mum making?

I think a lot of this stems from liking things quite plain and not mixed together. Def no more than 3 flavours at once.

I have learned to take a mild korma but I've never had home made and worry about the unhealthy ness of the cream. What veg would go ok in a korma? I don't eat rice so I'd have it with naan or chapattis.

Courgettes, peas and sweetcorn are all no gos.

It has felt like a lot of work, all this meal planning and preparing in advance.

Other than tea in the morning I have no idea what we are going to eat tomorrow. Putting a pizza in the oven is so easy and thought-free!

I think you will do this but it will take stamina. You need to keep tasting even when you don't like it. Dh forced blue cheese on me for 15 years before I relented and started to enjoy it. It can be done, you can change your tastebuds.
Flavoured mash was mentioned earlier in the thread - try adding mashed carrot or parsnip - use a hand blender to process the carrot before adding to the mash.
If you like green beans - get some frozen for convenience. I like them fried with garlic oil, but boiled and dressed with butter and sea salt tastes great too.
I make a very simple carrot and beetroot salad dressed with balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil - could you eat that. Also to encourage more salad eating I wash the leaves as soon as I take them home, dry them in the salad spinner where they stay until they are eaten - this keeps them really fresh and means that salad prep is a lot less bothersome. I now eat loads of salad.

I think bread is just as unhealthy as pasta tbh, it contains many of the same ingredients. Wholemeal versions are better if you can stand those?

It will take time but eventually you will find that some healthy things are quick and easy too and you can make those without thinking too much about it. Our favourite quick meals now are fajitas or burritos, using a supermarket kit, whereas a year ago they would have been pizza like yours.

Hmm well in considering jacking this in now.

My veg lasagne last night has had the effect of keeping me up half the night with 'wind'.

If this is life with veg then I'm back on the cheese!

gerty I only eat wholemeal bread. White bread, white pasta, rice etc are all just empty bloaty starches to me that don't taste nice and are empty calories. I don't eat junk food!

Mexican food is out as spicy things blow the roof off my mouth.

I do eat 'healthily' I just don't eat veg.

I've been trying to read around why these guidelines are in place and precisely what vitamins and minerals I could be missing out on. As I eat meat, fruit, wholegrains, beans, eggs and dairy the only thing I'm probably not getting enough of is folic acid/folate. So basically I need to eat spinach and/or broccoli. Although I'm finding it hard to ascertain whether I need one of these every day or whether once or twice a week is ok.

Your tastes seem similar to mine and like you bread forms my carb for most meals rather than rice, potatoes or pasta. I do however love vegetables and always have a salad as a side dish or main or a serving of corn/swede/brocolli/roasted veg etc. If I feel I have been low in veg for a few days I do a pot of lentil and veg soup which tastes delicious and has lots of goodness in. It's simply whatever veg you have in grated or finely chopped (I do leeks, carrots, turnip sometimes sweet potatoes, tomatoes or peppers) with lentils and ham stock cubes. Simmered until softened then can blitz if preferred smooth. Could that be a lunch option?

Do you have a garden? Or are there allotments near you?

Something which has helped us broaden our veg intake is eating what we grow and growing what we eat. You get to eat the pick of the crop when it is perfectly ripe. This does make a difference as the flavours are just bigger.

This time of year you can also start look at blackberrying. In a month or so you will be able to pick apples from trees growing at the road side. So that is blackberry & apple crumble sorted especially if you have some freezer space.

I find eating cold salad with a hot meal odd.

I don't know, I'd rather eat all hot food or all cold food.

I maybe need to work on this to have salad with meals.

But what do people's side salads contain? I'll eat lettuce but it's quite boring. I don't like dressings. I'll eat one or two cherry tomatoes but I'm not keen. I'll maybe eat one slice of cucumber. But it all feels like a chore.

Raw baby spinach is one thing I don't mind with hot food sometimes.

We have a garden now but won't in a few weeks.

We would love to have a garden to grow in. We would get a greenhouse and fill it!

If you arent going to have a garden are there allotments near by? You dont just have to grow veg, I grow fruit and flowers as well.

It doesnt matter how you eat fruit & vegetables they are just quite good for you. They dont have to be on a plate. The best fruit & veg are plucked and eaten as you walk round the allotment/garden (IMHO).

From what I've heard in the papers it is a 2 year wait for an allotment. And DP doesn't drive so it's probably not for us.

We will hopefully have a garden next summer.

It has basically taken 36 hours for my gut to settle down after that veggie meal on Tuesday so I'm back on the pizza tonight.

Re the allotment thing. Take the waiting list thing with a pinch of salt. In my area we have currently only a very short (or even non-existent) waiting list. Getting an allotment is often quicker than you anticipate - I was quoted 20 years and got a call 3 months later.

It is worth looking on google earth to see where your local fields are. I didnt know that the one I am on existed as it was hidden behind various buildings.

Any road, probably blithering!

Re having accompanying vegetables. You dont have to, have a vegetable course instead. That way the vegetables & any source need to suit themselves not something else.

For the sake of your gut, break it in gently.