Filling up on fiber- and water-rich foods at the beginning of a meal can help prevent you from eating too much high-calorie fare later. Research out of Penn State shows that eating a first-course salad can reduce overall calorie intake at a meal by up to 12 percent. A small side salad is an easy way to work more nutritious vegetables into your diet. But not the kind of salad with a leaf of iceberg, loads of croutons and heavy dressing. Start with a salad of greens as the foundation, then add an assortment of vegetables for crunch, flavor and color. The more colors of vegetables you add, the more disease-fighting nutrients you get. Here are more than 40 ideas to make an almost endless variety of tasty, wholesome salads: How...
read full post »Make vegetable prep easier by using frozen produce. It may even be healthier than fresh. Frozen vegetables are processed at their peak ripeness, a time when—as a general rule—they are most nutrient-packed. Freezing locks in all that fresh-picked nutrition and flavor. Plus, it doesn’t get any easier: washed and typically prechopped, frozen vegetables can literally go straight from freezer to pot. And they can be stored for long periods of time, ready and waiting for you.
Recipe of the Day: Quick Vegetable Sauté
Easy Recipes for Frozen Fruits and Vegetables
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Some vegetables add delicious creaminess to a smoothie while others add healthy fiber and flavor. Try avocados, leafy greens like kale and spinach, cucumbers or even canned pumpkin or cooked sweet potato for a tasty addition.
Try one of Eating Well’s Veggie-Filled Smoothie Recipes:
Put the emphasis on vegetables at mealtime. Pick one day (or just a meal) a week to eat meatless and have veggies be the shinning star on your plate. If you’re worried that you’ll miss the meat, include chewy, satisfying foods like seared firm tofu, grilled mushrooms and nuts, which feel more filling because they take more time and effort to eat than, say, a spoonful of broth. They also better mimic the way you chew meat—which makes them a more satisfying substitute.
Don’t Miss: 5 Secrets for Cooking Vegetarian Food That Satisfies Like a Meaty Meal
Recipe of the Day: Moo Shu Vegetables
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Even the biggest veggie-phobe will munch down when you offer a delicious dip with crunchy spears of fresh vegetables. Carrots, celery and peppers take on a whole new taste when dunked with a little dip—OK, for some of you perhaps drowned in dip. It’s all good, if the veggies get eaten. And when you pick one of EatingWell’s healthy dip recipes, you really can’t go wrong. (Plus, with our Creamy Spinach Dip Recipe, even the dip has veggies!)
A 2011 Temple University Study found that adding a small amount of dip to a serving of vegetables helped children eat more of them. The study, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, found that offering 2.5 ounces of ranch dressing as a dip increased broccoli consumption by 80 percent. Go dip!
So go ahead and...
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