How to Get More Fruits and Vegetables into Your Diet

Getting the minimum five daily servings of fruits and vegetables is not as daunting as you might think.

Step 1: Know your serving size
Know what counts as a serving. A medium-size piece of fruit, a cup of salad greens, or a half-cup of cooked or raw vegetables all constitute one serving.

Step 2: Begin at breakfast
Begin at breakfast: Add dried or fresh fruit to cereal or yogurt; put vegetables in an omelet, or make a smoothie. Pack yourself a banana for a mid-day snack.

Step 3: Slice and dice
An assortment of veggies adds flavor and crunch to a green salad, but don't forget fruit. Apples, pears, mangoes, and mandarin oranges are a nice addition to a salad, too.

Tip
Whenever you eat spinach, have something high in vitamin C, like a citrus fruit. The combination can help your body absorb the iron in the spinach.

Step 4: Wrap it
Use romaine or green-leaf lettuce in place of tortillas to make wraps.

Step 5: Puree it
Enrich tomato sauce with pureed vegetables like broccoli, squash, and carrots. Blend pureed cauliflower into your mashed potatoes.

Step 6: Get souped up
Beef up canned soup with extra chopped veggies, either fresh or frozen, and spice it up with nutritious herbs like oregano and parsley.

Tip
If you have children, add one teaspoon of sugar per two cups of water when you boil vegetables; a study showed that teens are more willing to eat broccoli and cauliflower cooked that way.

Step 7: Eat the bowl
Serve one-pot dishes like chili, stew, and baked pasta in hollowed-out bell peppers or baked squash halves. When you finish the filling, eat the bowl!

Step 8: Do the salsa
Enliven a baked potato, an omelet, or a piece of chicken with salsa. A few tablespoons of store-bought salsa counts as a serving of vegetables, but you can also add extra chopped veggies, like onions, mushrooms, and peppers. Fruit salsa is another option; it goes well with chicken, pork, and fish.

Did You Know?
Blueberries are nature's no. 1 source of anti-oxidants among fruits and vegetables.

[michellelovesinternet]

I hate how people act is if everybody hates fruits and vegetables.
I'm 13, and I can't get enough! <3

[quitejaded]

Its hard to get over childhood food dislikes... but you can do it! Just start slowly. and meet people who cook all the time so they can add it with out you knowing its there.

[zegct]

@lolzabubbles They were referring to the fact that they'd put the actual serving of dinner inside of the bell pepper, thus making the bell pepper a makeshift bowl. (They put the whole thing inside of another bowl afterwards in case the pepper broke mid-meal.)

[quitejaded]

Spinach + orange... will remember that!

[LadyofTheSummer]

The only way I eat spinach is cooked with an omelet or breakfast crostini or with fresh sqeezed orange juice. Squeezed orange juice on spinach makes it taste very good.

[fuzzyco]

I started eating my orange really fast

[TheElectricDreamer]

@kissfan7 - I think it depends on the brand, since some say 10% fruit juice or whatever, so a lot of it would be water. (For OJ, I drink sunny D and for grape juice, I drink Welchs) But that's just me and what I think, so I might be wrong.

[redhairedgryffindor]

I used to hate fruits and vegetables when I was a kid but now I really want to eat fruits and vegetables but my older sister still didn't like to eat them because she enjoy eating fast food like KFC, McDonald's and Burger King for lunch. But for me, fast food really make me sick.

[RosidaI]

Thank you very much, this is good. :)

[morrighan]

if it's any conforting, my friend can't eat anything either...she had surgery a couple of days ago, and she can only drink plain water

so...hang in there :)

[albinoshira]

Haha, maybe I'll try that sometime.

[mirmeg]

You will need:
IMAGINATION!
Spongebob Voice! :D

[BernieShadows]

Ha...that is the smart thing to do, when I was around 12 I didn't like tomatoes I would take a big bite of the burger and dip the tomato into the ketchup for my french fries I couldn't even taste it, but now I'm 20 and like tomatoes hehe...

[kissfan]

Do juices count? For example, I just drank about two servings of apple juice (according to the nutrition label), so does that mean I only need about three more servings for today?

[MamaMegums]

@kissfan7 I would say probably not unless you also eat the pulp.

[GreenGreda]

Tip: If you want to slurge and eat cake, make carrot cake. The reciepe I have is 2 servings of vegetables per cupcake

[ffangs]

biggest problem though is they go bad so fast. but you can chop em up and keep ziplocs of them in the freezer.

[crazywanch]

My Aunt force fed me lettuce as a child.
It made me vaumit.
I have never eaten since.

[BernieShadows]

lol...I use to dip the slice of tomato into the ketchup and eat it along with my first bite of the burger just so I can forget about it, once that happened then my burger and I would always have a wonderful time alone. HaHaHa

[miesrah]

how about this:
1.get a friend(or enemy) and tell him/her to feed you the fruits and vegetables no matter what you say
2. give him/her the food
3.tell him/her to strap you to a chair
4.enjoy