Welcome to Day 5 of Sleekgeek’s free 30-Day You Healthy Habits Challenge!
Each day for 30 days we give you 1 habit to complete in order to help you eat, move, think, or sleep better.
Today’s task is to eat green veggies with dinner tonight:
Getting into the habit of eating more veggies is hands-down one of the best things you can do to improve your health.
Vegetables are high in antioxidants, beneficial micronutrients, and contain a great amount of useful fiber that helps to feed the good bacteria in our intestines for better digestion and gut health, increases fullness and satiety, reduces blood sugar spikes, and improves cholesterol.
The scary thing is even with all those benefits, most people don’t eat anywhere near enough of them.
Ideally, we should be eating a decent-sized serving of veggies with each and every meal throughout the day (for a total of 10 servings a day) – but we know that is quite a daunting task at first so we suggest starting off slowly by just ensuring you are eating them every night with dinner.
To be even more specific, we challenge you to eat some green veggies with dinner tonight. Broccoli, spinach, asparagus, kale, cabbage, cucumber, brussels sprouts, celery, green beans, and so on. YUM!
Keep in mind, a lot of the enjoyment of vegetables comes in how you prepare and present them too. Take some time to find some great tasty recipes online and get creative with how you include them in your meal.
If you are not mad about veggies then grab your blender and make a delicious green veggie smoothie. There are loads of delicious recipes on the web. Or make a soup.
Here are some benefits of a few favourite greens:
- Broccoli: With 25 calories a serving broccoli is rich in vitamin C and is also a good source of vitamin A, potassium, and folate. Its stalks and florets add both crunch and color to stir-fries. Great raw or steamed.
- Kale: An excellent source of vitamins A C, and K, has a good amount of calcium for a vegetable, and also supplies folate and potassium.
- Swiss chard: With red stems, stalks, and veins on its leaves, Swiss chard has a beet-like taste and soft texture that’s perfect for sauteeing. Both Swiss chard and spinach contain oxalates, which are slightly reduced by cooking and can bind to calcium, a concern for people prone to kidney stones. Chard contains 15 calories in one-half cup and is a good source of vitamins A and C.
- Spinach: Popeye’s favorite vegetable has 20 calories per serving, plus it’s packed with vitamins A and C, as well as folate. And because heat reduces the green’s oxalate content, freeing up its dietary calcium, “cooked spinach gives you more nutrition than raw,”. Spinach leaves can be cooked quickly in the water that remains on them after rinsing, or they can be eaten raw in salads. Bags of frozen chopped spinach are more convenient to use than block kinds, and this mild-flavored vegetable can be added to soups, pasta dishes, and casseroles.
- Cabbage: Although paler in color than other leafy greens, this cruciferous vegetable is a great source of cancer-fighting compounds and vitamin C. Available in red and green varieties, cabbage can be cooked, added raw to salads or stir fries, shredded into a slaw, or made into sauerkraut.
DONE!
See you tomorrow for your Day 6’s task.
If you have just stumbled on this page sign up for Sleekgeek’s full 30-Day Healthy Habits Challenge right here. It is 100% free.
Want more of this kind of thing?
- Read our blog post on The 25 Superfoods of the Sleekgeek Lifestyle.
- Read our blog post on How to Make a Healthier Salad [Infographic].
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