One of the nutritional principles I first teach my clients is the
importance of a high vegetable intake.
Vegetables provide important fibre, vitamins, minerals, and
other phyto nutrients that help with detoxification and estrogen balance (especially Cruciferous vegetables)
Vegetables also quite low in calories meaning that you can fit quite a lot of them into your daily targets. Keeping hunger at bay becomes especially important when eating in a deficit when loosing body fat.
Variety and rotation of colours is important to get a broad
spectrum of different health promoting nutrients and also avoid developing food sensitivities.
Go Organic
I recommend to choose organic vegetables whenever
possible because although some studies have shown they don’t have any more
nutrients in them than non organic produce the fact that you are going to be
exposing yourself to less pesticides and fertilisers is only going to be a good
thing.
If you are truly budget strapped then spend the time to
properly clean your non organic vegetables before preparing them.
"I can't eat vegetables, I don't like the taste"
I hear excuses all the time about how vegetables don’t taste good but I
find this is often due to lack of creativity with cooking.
Yes I agree if I
were to attempt to eat only plainly steamed or boiled vegetables I would not enjoy the taste andget pretty
sick of it too.
Ensure not to over cook your vegetables and make them too soft otherwise this will also negatively affect the taste.
Combing The Vegetables Into A Balanced Meal and Limited On Time?
I understand that limited time can be a factor for the busy professional so following the below tip can save you around 10 minutes of preparation-
- Use ready cut and washed vegetables.
- Ready Cooked meat/fish or tinned fish- Look in the packet for the least amount of ingredients and additives as possible.
- Canned beans, lentils, ready cooked quinoa, potatoes or rice are valid carbohydrate sources.
- Healthy fats are easy to add in the form of adding nuts or oil to your meal.
Using tinned food is not ideal as there are some concerns surrounding the BPA (a form of plastic) they use to line the can's. Some studies have shown this can leak into the food however tinned food is a better option than not eating at all or opting for more processed ready meals if you really don't have the time to prepare fresh food.
The quantities of food you use are of course always in the context of hitting your macro nutrient targets for the day. It only take a small amount of time figure this out and quantities can be adjusted as needed.
Ingredient's
1 large Onion (92 grams)
2 large Carrots (192 grams)
12 Asparagus Spears (146 grams)
2 large sticks of Celery (224 grams)
1 head of Cauliflower (408 grams)
1 bunch of Chard (140 grams)
8 grams of Butter Oil (Ghee)
Fresh Garlic and Ginger.
1 MSG free stock cube mixed in to ½ a cup of hot water.
Salt, pepper, chilli’s and other herbs and spices to taste etc
3 other vegetable combinations ideas-
1, Broccoli, Red Onion, Spinach, Sweet Pepper, Parsnip and Green Peas
2, Brussels's Sprouts, Spring Onions, Mange Tout, Mushrooms, Turnip and Zucchini
3, Non cooked version - Romaine Lettuce, Jerusalem Artichoke, Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber, Beetroot and Bell Pepper.
Cooking Instructions
- Wash then cut up the vegetables into relatively even sizes, the smaller you cut them the faster they will cook.
- Using a large wok pan, stir fry the onions in the butter oil for 2 minutes until lightly browned.
- Add the vegetable stock cube liquid and Cauliflower and stir fry for 2 minutes
- Add the Asparagus and stir fry for 2 minutes
- Add the Carrots, Celery and stir fry for 2 minute.
- Add the Chard and stir fry for a further 2 minutes
- Finish off by adding the fresh garlic and ginger and any herbs and spices you wanted.
Macro nutrients per serving (4 servings) work out to be
approximately (I rounded up)-
104 KCAL
5 grams Protein
18 grams Carbohydrate (7 grams fibre)
2 grams of Fat
There we have it, 4 delicious and filling portions of vegetables prepared in 15-20 minutes if you washed and cut fresh vegetables and 10 minutes of you use ready prepared vegetables.
