The Top 3 Ways To Eat More Greens

One of the central components of any healthy diet is eating a sufficient quantity of greens. Yet 95% of people who follow a health diet, do not consume enough green leafy vegetables.

I'll admit, I often have trouble (or sometimes even lack the desire) to eat my greens. There are days when I just don't eat enough of them. I know greens are good. I know I need to eat more greens but I just don't do it.

And then I discovered a fun way to get more greens into my diet. Here are my Top-3 Ways to get more greens into your diet.

1. Make Green Smoothies

Green smoothies are great and my favorite way to consume a large quantity of greens! When I first heard about green smoothies I was a little skeptical about blending fruit and greens and was surprised by the result.

Here are some recipes from my ebook Smoothies for Optimal Health.

Berry Roman Smoothie

1 cup strawberries
2 whole bananas
1/2 bunch romain
1/2 to 1 cup water

Blend fruit and water. Add romaine lettuce. Enjoy.

Being Green Smoothie

2 cups fresh spinach
1 whole grated cucumber or carrot
2 whole bananas
1 whole orange
3 whole apples, juiced

In a blender, whirl together all ingredients until thick and smooth.

2. Make Blended Salads

Once you've gotten used to the taste of greens in your smoothies, you can graduate to making blended salads. You can transition gradually by reducing the amount of fruit in your smoothie and increasing the quantity of greens. Gaspacho is a type of blended salad. Here is one of my favorite recipes (though I will admit it took me a while to get used to the taste and texture of blended salads).

Blended Salad

2 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped
2 ribs of celery
4 leaves lettuce (big)
1 big handful spinach
1 green onion
1/2 avocado
1/4 cup parsley
2 Tbs. dulse flakes
1 Tbs. nori flakes (optional)
Water if needed

Blend the tomatoes together, and add the rest of the ingredients progressively. Use water only if you need to. A blended salad should be quite thick.

3. Find One Good Healthy Salad Dressing

A funny thing happened once I started consuming more greens in my diet. I started to dislike some of my favorite "healthy" dressings. My tastebuds lurched at the taste of olive oil. So I compiled a collection of healthy salad dressings in my ebook "The Top 70 Healthy Salad Dressings You Can Make in Less Than 2 Minutes"

Here's a recipe to get you started.

2 tomatoes or cucumbers
2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
1 cup fresh dill
1 small avocado

Blend tomatoes and add other ingredients progressively. Blend until smoothie. Add other seasonings if desired. Use more water if necessary.

We know greens are good for us and we should all strive to get more greens in our diet but don't force yourself to eat more greens if you don't like them! You'll get sick easily. Instead, let your innate hunger for greens come back naturally, by slowly incorporating more greens in your diet in the form of green smoothies, blended salads, etc. You'll find that as your diet starts to become cleaner, you will naturally crave more greens and raw foods.

Deborah Carraro is an avid nutrition, health & fitness enthusiast. If you're tired of feeling tired and drained
all day and often fall victim to the 3 PM lows, then you're in for some surprises once you learn to make delcious and nutritious smoothies. Visit http://www.smoothiesforhealth.com for more information.