Eat More Plants For A Healthier Body
Think of a meal you had in the last 24 hours and try to visualize it. What were the main foods in that meal? Did you have the basics covered with a fiber-based carb, lean protein, and healthy fat? If you have been reading these blogs for a while, hopefully you have all three of those covered. Now I want to think about how much of your meal came from plants. Was it ¼, ½, or most of your meal?
That latter question is something many people don’t think about however, is something we should all be giving more thought to for the following reasons:
Plants are a great source of vitamins, minerals, fiber, healthy fats, and protein.
They are packed with phytochemicals that protect our body and reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke, and some types of cancer.
They can help you lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.
They can improve your mood and energy levels.
Unfortunately, plants often take a backseat in our diet and are oftentimes an afterthought to a meal. Just think of a time that you were making dinner and said to yourself, oh I should have some type of veggie with this. This has been me many times before and I typically would go for a staple veggie such as frozen green peas, or broccoli.
As great as frozen peas and broccoli are, they often didn’t complement the meal well and I would be missing out on many of the other nutrient packed plants available to us.
When you look at edible plants whether veggies, fruits, tubers, or legumes, colors mean many things. These colors come from the different phytochemicals found in a given plant. What these colors indicate to us is the different nutrients we will get from eating a specific-colored food.
That is why it’s so important to make plants a major part of your meal with more thought placed onto which one/s you will have. Ideally, it’s best to make sure your plate is as colorful as possible and aim to eat all the different colors daily. This way you’ll ensure you are getting the most out of all the different benefits plants offer us.
How to increase your plant intake
Knowing you should eat more plants is easy, but incorporating more plants into your meal becomes difficult at times. Many people start by adding a salad to their lunch or dinner. While this is a great way to incorporate many different colors it can get boring and not work for every meal.
Use these tips to help increase your plant intake at every meal:
Choose a meal that incorporates plants as part of the meal (oatmeal w/ berries, chili, buddha bowls, etc).
Find and try new ways to prepare and cook different plants, online recipes are a great place to start.
Choose a plant option available to you and build a meal around it. Look up recipes online using your chosen plant.
Go out to eat at restaurants that incorporate plants in different and unique ways. You can then incorporate what you liked into your cooking.
Raw fruits and veggies make great snacks and are a great option between meals to help keep you full and increase your color intake for the day.
Vegetarian cooking websites offer great recipe ideas that you can incorporate to complement an animal protein source, add an animal protein into, or eat on its own as a complete meal. Check out these websites to find new ways of cooking plants and try some new meal ideas:
The Key Takeway
Plants are packed with nutrients that protect and nourish our body. Having a plant source at every meal and eating as many different colors as possible ensures we give our body what it needs.
Finding new ways to cook or incorporate plants into your meals is a great place to start when you’re first getting started. Going out to eat to find new ways of using and cooking plants is a fun way to learn and taste what will work for you.
If you want help with your diet and figuring out what you may be lacking, contact me at dietitian2go@gmail.com or schedule an appointment to get started!
Written by: Adam Skowyra RDN, LD, MPPD