No matter who you ask, when people think of a healthy diet they automatically think of vegetables. Almost every dietary protocol out there suggests that we should eat more!

Vegetables and greens offer a wide variety of nutrients, fiber for moving things along, and anti-oxidants for fighting free radicals. Unfortunately many, if not most, Americans eat very few vegetables and never any greens!

5 ways I struggle with eating more vegetables:

1. During the winter months they are available only from the grocery store… trekked in from warmer climates. For me, this means that they don’t taste near as good since they are often picked before they are at their ripest.
2. The produce in our smaller grocery stores (the ones closest to our home) tend to begin to rot fairly quickly, sometimes I buy only half of what I’d really like simply because they aren’t fresh! They also offer very little in terms of variety. In one store I can’t even buy a bunch of kale and the bagged spinach is super pricey!
3. It can take longer to prepare vegetables for me. The chopping and slicing definitely take some time when I’m making meals.
4. They don’t taste as good as chocolate. I mean really… Veggies are great and all, but when I reach for a snack and it’s either the M&Ms I had hidden away or a handful of carrots, what do you think is going to happen? Either you (I) grab the chocolate or I miserably eat the carrots wishing I had chocolate instead.
5. Greens, other than kale, are hard for me to find ways to eat on a regular basis. I think it’s a texture thing for me.

Excuses are just that though – an excuse. And eating more vegetables and greens can increase your health dramatically if you aren’t already getting in at least 4-6 cups per day. (if you are, shoot for 7-9 cups!)

5 ways to kill my excuses

1. Deal with it. Plain and simple, I just have to deal with the fact that many veggies won’t taste as fresh as during the summer. I’ve also found that during these months I prefer to use many vegetables frozen during this time, like corn, green beans, and broccoli. Or I’ll use a dip to give them a bit more flavor. Adding them to soups also helps as the single flavors aren’t as important as the whole.
2. Make time in my schedule to get to the bigger supermarket that carries higher quality produce (with more variety)! And when I go I need to focus on shopping the produce section first and filling up my cart. Having a stock of frozen vegetables is also helpful in the weeks where I have to choose the smaller store.
3. I always kick myself for not taking an hour to chop and prepare my weeks worth of veggies. When I’m able to wash, chop, and get all my snacking veggies ready to go in the fridge, I’m much more inclined to grab some carrots and homemade ranch or celery and almond butter. I can also get things chopped up for a quick stir fry as a quick lunch or dinner. And speaking of a quick veggie meal… having lettuce and salad veggies chopped up makes grabbing a big salad for a meal really easy! I toss in a bit of protein and a great homemade dressing and I’m all set. <—note to self – do this every week!
4. I can’t buy sweets. I know there are people out there that say if you simply have access to them, or over eat them, that you’ll lose your desire for sweets. Nope. Not me. And it doesn’t matter how long I’ve been without them. I have found that I am an emotional eater when it comes to sweets, and the emotion that triggers them is overwhelm or stress. So for me, in this stage of life, it’s important that I don’t have those foods in the house. This makes the already cut up veggies a sure thing.
5. I love sautéed kale and have it multiple times a week! But other greens are not my favorite. Instead, I steam them and freeze, adding them to my smoothies. And more recently I’ve been using a powdered greens mix to drink once a day, either in water or a smoothie. Todd has been getting this drink every morning as well. (I have a hard time getting veggies into him during the day while he’s at work!)

Eat your greens!

The organic greens I’ve been using were sent to me to review from Dr. Mercola. (FDA disclosure a sec – I did not receive any financial compensation from them and the opinions stated are my own.)

At first I was hesitant to accept the product to review because I’ve tried a few powders in the past and never really liked them. One popular brand ended up in the back of my cupboard for a couple of years until I finally tossed it.

Knowing I needed to up the intake of veggies in my diet right now, as well as greatly increase it for Todd, I said yes and I’m glad I did.

The greens mix includes not only powdered greens and veggies, but an organic mushroom blend, specific antioxidants, a blend of spirulina and chlorella, as well as adaptogenic herbs like maca and rhodiola, so it’s a powerhouse of nutrients.

The mix itself is also a fine powder and doesn’t end up chunky when you try to stir it in water which was an issue I’ve had before. If you let it sit for a while it doesn’t tend to settle at the bottom of the glass, but easily stirs back in.

Organic Greens also tastes good (thank goodness, or else Todd would never drink it!). You can mix it with 6 ounces of water or blend with smoothies. Either way it tastes good, though I do love it in my smoothies.

I don’t seem to have an issue getting in enough veggies when life is running smoothly and I’m on top of my game. But in times of busyness or more stress, I love that I have options like this to help me get the nutrients I need without causing me more overwhelm. (overwhelm = stress eating junk food)

And they taste good enough that I don’t mind drinking it everyday!

 

Do you have problems getting in enough vegetables and greens in your diet? Let me know why in the comments and we’ll see if you can kill your excuses too!

This is the time of year that people just crave fresh produce. I love eating seasonal. When summer hits, my body hasn’t had fresh strawberries, blueberries, cherries, or raspberries since the previous summer, and I just savor them more. I enjoy them to the fullest!

If you are so blessed to live in an area where farmers open their fields up to let you pick your own produce, take advantage! The prices per pound are drastically cheaper than what you are going to find at the store – and even the farmer’s market. And the experience is one you will look forward to every year. If you are unsure of any U-Pick farms in your area, I found THIS site quite helpful in locating the ones around me.

Here are some ways to take advantage of your local U-Pick season:

1. Resist the urge to go on the first day of picking. The picking will be easier and more abundant about a week or so into the picking season for most things. In my experience the only exception would be cherries, whose season is only about a week anyway so go as soon as those are ready!
2. Plan on going first thing in the morning, especially if you live somewhere very warm. This is not only to ensure you don’t overheat, but you will avoid all the late morning and afternoon bug pests. And especially with something like strawberries and cherries that get picked over very fast, you will be getting the best of the best.
3. Bring your own containers. When I go in, I’m going for a haul. I’m talking 40 pounds of strawberries. 60-70 pounds of blueberries. I don’t want little pint containers. I want buckets that I can easily carry, and that hold a lot without damaging the fruit. Big plastic buckets, old plastic ice cream containers, etc work well. Some U-Picks offer decent containers you can borrow. Just check if there is a limit or a price on them.
4. Plan to go on a day when you have time to tend to your haul right after picking. You don’t want to go picking and then let it sit in your garage or home for the next day or so until you can get to it. You want to come home right away, get them washed up, and prep them for what you plan to use them for. A simple wash I like to do is just plug up your sink and start filling with water. Add in a few big shakes of baking soda and vinegar with a squeeze of a full lemon and swish it around.
5. Freeze, freeze, freeze! Do you know how much frozen fruit costs at the store? A lot! Get that fruit up on some baking sheets after you wash them, and freeze them flat. Once frozen you can dump them into plastic freezer bags and stack them up in your deep freezer. Use them for your smoothies, oatmeal, yogurt, or baking. You will never have to buy another freezer bag of fruit!
6. Dehydrate! Wash up part of your haul and get them right onto your dehydrator trays to go for a few hours. Store the dried berries in airtight containers to add to your granola, oatmeal, yogurt, or trailmixes. If you don’t have a dehydrator do them on the lowest setting in your oven. I only recently got a dehydrator and have done them in the oven for years.
7. Jam! I’m actually not much of a jam maker, although last year I did make blueberry jam for the first time and it was the most amazing thing I ever tasted! Hit up Google – there are many recipes using natural pectin, or even no pectin, and all using either very low if any sugar or natural sweeteners like honey.
8. Eat them fresh. There is just nothing like fresh picked fruit. You can make your fruit last longer by giving them a quick baking soda and vinegar bath. Eat up all you want while they are in season! That is what they are there for! Stock your body up on the antioxidants so you have a storehouse once the long winter sets in.

So tell me! What do you go picking this time of year?

If you would have told me 8 years ago that I would be making soup from scratch for my family on a weekly and monthly basis I would have *laughed* (hard!) at you.

I did NOT know how to cook.

But as it turns out, learning how to cook, and specifically soup making, was key in healing just about every aspect of disease that I was experiencing at the time.

I am hopelessly in love with soup, not just because it tastes good (and when you do it right it *so* does!), but because it was pivotal in my healing. I am hoping by the end of this post to spark a fire of hope in you that this simple practice of soup making can start a healing in you. Please use the comments section to ask questions – I have made this work in every season of life and it very much can be done! I want to help – let’s talk it out!

1. Bone broth is incredibly healing to the digestive system.

“All disease begins in the gut” as they say. If you have any diagnosis, you can start the healing process by addressing your gut. The gelatin that is leached from the bones helps digest food and is a source of protein, and the nutrients in bone broth heal gut lining. I’m coming to realize that just about everyone needs some sort of gut intervention. Even myself, after years of working on gut healing successfully, I find that having bone broth in my weekly (if not daily) menu just keeps my digestive system in tact so I am not susceptible to getting sick. It almost never happens.

Also, if you have a tender digestive system, eating your veggies in a cooked manner is just easier in general on your digestive system. I find that in the winter months I just do better eating my veggies in soup form, and I save eating raw veggies for when veggies are in season in the spring and summer.

2. Bone broth is an excellent source of vital minerals like magnesium and calcium.

When you prepare broth in the correct way, you are pulling the minerals right out of the bones! So you are getting these minerals in the proper proportions – the way nature intended. Our soils are so depleted of minerals, and in order for our hormones to function properly, we need these vital minerals at work in our body. The nutrients in bone broth are also very easily absorbed by the body. Supplements have a time and place, but getting nutrients straight from the source like this is just easier and quicker for the digestive system to absorb.

3. You can get a variety of vegetables in, all at once, and make it taste GOOD!

Listen, veggies don’t top my list of things I just *love* the taste of. Right? I mean, I love a good raw salad or veggies right out of the garden in the summer, but let’s be real. It’s kinda a drag to have to figure out how to get them in everyday – and into your family. Enter soup flavor basics 101! See action step #4 below for my secrets to making EVERY soup taste good. Take advantage of having an immersion blender and make soup purees. The soup will be creamy without adding in a bunch of other stuff.

4. Making your own soup is time saving.

What?! Making something from scratch takes less time that opening a can of soup?? Well, not really – but that can of soup is NOT going to fill you up like real soup will – so you will be having to fix yourself something more to eat in addition to, or later on. The key is making batches of soup. Make one day a week (or even one day a month) “soup day”. Stock up your freezer – you can even freeze in single cup portions so you just have to pull it out and take it with you. If you don’t have the freezer space, then make one batch every week – it will keep for a week in the fridge. I don’t usually have to think about what’s for lunch – it is normally some sort of soup from my freezer. No meal planning here. Just grab and go.

5. Making your own soup is extremely economical.

If I haven’t gotten you on any of the above points (although I hope I have!), maybe the frugal monster will get you on this one?! One of the reasons I feel like I have had to walk through periods of time of financial lack is to prove the point that you can still eat real food and be on a very (*very*) tight budget. Soup allows me to “stretch” my meat budget. My family could eat an entire chicken on its own in 2 dinners – but I can make an entire chicken last a week or so by putting the meat in soup. The broth is full of protein so I don’t worry about my family not getting enough meat protein – it is built right into the soup!

So here are some action steps to get this party started (like today!):

ACTION STEP 1: Find a source of pastured chicken or beef.

Ask around at farmer’s markets. Check in your area for places that sell raw milk – 9 times out of 10 these farmers also sell pastured meat products. Or find a local health food store – be still be sure you know where the meat is coming from. It can say “organic” all you want but if the bird or the cow was not on pasture eating bugs and grass it is not as superior.

ACTION STEP 2: Once you find a good source let’s make some bone broth!

Make your own chicken stock or beef stock.

Here is how I make it work with a crazy schedule and 5 mouths to feed in my family: Every other week I roast or crockpot a whole chicken or two. I use the meat for the next week or 2 of meals and/or freeze some of the meat for quick pull out meat from the freezer. I throw the bones right into a crockpot or my big roaster oven and make my stock. This way I always have chicken stock available. I make beef broth every other month or so – I make a huge batch and I do 2-3 “rounds” of broth – meaning after I strain out my broth, I put the bones back in the crockpot with more water and do another “round”. Beef bones are huge – there is a lot of minerals to leach out of them – don’t let them go to waste! I freeze my stock in jars and store in my deep freezer. BUT! You can make this work if you don’t have a deep freezer! For years I lived in a small apartment and I still did this. On a little smaller scale since I didn’t have so many mouths to feed, but it still works. Freeze your stock flat in freezer bags or get some nice stackable freezer containers to make the most use out of your freezer space.

ACTION STEP 3: Every time you make some soup get your basics in first.

HERE IS HOW TO MAKE *EVERY* SOUP TASTE GOOD! Warm up your pot and use *liberal* amounts of friendly fat (butter, coconut oil, tallow, lard) for cooking in. I’m talking a good 3-5 tablespoons depending on how big of a batch you are doing. Get those onions and other hard veggies (such as carrots, celery, or cabbage) in there with generous pinches of sea salt and let them go to town for a good 10 minutes on medium heat. The salt and heat bring out the natural juices in these veggies and they will sweeten up and become more flavorful. Add in lots of garlic for a minute and then you are ready to add your stock and other veggies. It’s really that simple – every soup, every time.

ACTION STEP 4: Play around with different veggie combos.

If you get the base of the soup from above down pat, really any soup is going to taste good! Make a different veggie combo soup every week! If you make soup day on Saturday or Sunday, you can make enough for your lunches to work all week.

Here are some soups to try to get you going!

• Hearty Potato Soup
• Black Bean Soup with Shredded Pork
• Creamy Chicken Soup
• Creamy Veggie Soup
• Tomato Soup
• Chicken Noodle Soup
• Pea Soup
• Cabbage and Meatball Soup
• Squash Soup
• Spinach Lasagna Soup
• Broccoli Soup
• French Onion Soup
• Sprouted Lentil Soup