What tricks do you use to make sure you eat your daily fruits and vegetables?

51 comments

My little rule is that it’s okay to have Mac n cheese for dinner or frozen pizza so long as I add a veggie
Broccoli is my favorite and so easy. Steam it, boil it, fry or roast. Just add salt and pepper I love broccoli!
Try roasting veggies! Yum!!! Just chop up literally any veggie you have ( okay not lettuce though you psycho) and toss with olive oil, roast in oven on 400 for maybe 20 minutes. Super good! If you’re a good cook or feeling creative you can add spices idk maybe garlic powder that’s easy!
Here’s another trick: BEANS! people don’t usually think of beans as a vegetable but they are! And I think beans are the best vegetable of all! Each one is tastier than the last! Full of fiber and nutrients and even protein. Heat up a can of black beans WITH THE JUICE. Add cumin. Scoop em up with chip! Eat pinto beans. No recipe needed! Pinto beans are delicious! Garbanzo, navy, red, Lima. Yum yum yum! One day you meet the king of all beans, the boss level. The butter bean. Ohhh what a bean that is. The bigger the bean the better and the butter bean is the biggest of all. Sauté them with oil and spices, serve them on toast! Be happy! Spread joy!
(If you’re about to comment that beans are not a vegetable please do me a favor and ask google if that’s true. I’ve had too many conversations about this. Beans are a vegetable. They’re the king of vegetables!!)
- You're very enthusiastic about beans and I like that
- I decided to Google it as you suggested. The term "vegetable" doesn't really have a single widely accepted definition. It can apparently be used to describe any edible part of a plant by the broadest definition (i.e. a fruit is a vegetable).
  
  Yes that’s the fun of it! What are green beans and peas if not vegetable? People got really mixed up I think by the food pyramid, which is nothing more than government propaganda and it hasn’t been used for years anyway
- Beans are legumes. Nutritionally they could be seen as a vegetable due to the way we view vegetables but that doesn't mean they are a vegetable. Still a legume.
  
  Yes thank you. And what is a legume exactly? As members of the family fabacaea legumes include peanuts, clover, peas, green beans, and lupine. What do you notice of that group? One is clearly a nut, or is it? Two are unquestionably vegetable. And what about lupine? Is clover a nut a vegetable or a flower?
  Yes beans are legumes. And carrots are “tubers”. Bananas are technically a grain. What about eggplant? It’s a “nightshade” but it’s a vegetable right? Or is it a fruit?
  I love when people say beans are legumes and therefore not vegetables. It leads to such an interesting conversation. Many things aren’t as they seem. Some words are used botanically like “fabacaea” while some are strictly culinary like “vegetable”. The word “fruit” is interesting because it’s both! We all know that eggplant is not a fruit and yet it is!
  You see every vegetable belongs to a botanical group the way beans are legumes, squash is a cucurbit (so is watermelon!), potatoes are nightshades, broccoli is a cole (also called brassica). All vegetables!
  What is a vegetable? Well it’s really up to us to decide. We usually mean ANY part of a plant that can be eaten and usually we mean low in sugar. Beans are part of a plant. They are seeds of a legume just like peas. They are eaten with shells on as green beans but can be eaten fresh without shells like fava beans. Not vegetables? Think again!
- I feel like there's always a debate about keeping the liquid in canned beans vs not. Personally I like to keep it as it makes the dish taste better, but isn't that where most of the sodium comes from?
  
  You either add salt from the liquid, or you add salt independently. You're still getting the same amount of salt if you want to make your dish taste good. If you're avoiding salt for whatever reason, then yeah, don't use the water, but also don't use salted canned beans because there's going to be just as much salt in the beans themselves.

Eat them before you eat anything else. When you are hungry, foods tend to taste better, and your body is not trying to tell you to stop eating yet.
- That's a good tip
- I started doing that a few years ago. It's now part of my habits.

Make sure you swallow them when you're done chewing.

That's the neat part, I don't

If you have a decent blender, making smoothies is an easy way. If you don't like the taste you can just hold your nose and gulp it down.
- This is the way. Also easy to add protein and calories with peanut butter, yogurt, milk. I usually go with frozen fruit with a banana plus all the protein.
- I do smoothies too! 1 frozen banana (not too big) 1 small handful of frozen berries Some hemp seeds / ground flax seeds Almond milk - unsweetened vanilla
  Optionally add spinach / kale
  
  That’s a good one. I like to use tropical mix frozen fruit in summer. Usually has pineapple, mango, dragon fruit etc. in it

As a vegetarian, eating veggies comes with the territory lol. But if you're not having enough veggies already, I'd recommend switching to a cuisine which is veggie-heavy where you don't need/miss meat, like Indian/Asian/Mediterranean cuisines etc.
For fruits though, the key is to always have some at hand, in a convenient format, so that you're less likely to grab a bag of chips or something. For instance, with apples, you can cut them into pieces and apply lemon juice so that it doesn't oxidize, and then put it in a small airtight box next to wherever you spend most of your time (could be your desk/couch/bed etc). Same thing with oranges, peel em and put it in an airtight container. Other fruits don't need such prep work so you can alternate with them, eg grapes or bananas. And the trick is again, always have them nearby you so you're more likely to reach out to them than for junk food. And to get into the habit of this, make it a part of your daily routine. Like for me, I make a smoothie the first thing in the morning, and as part of that routine, I also prep my fruit-box for the day.

Not buying meat or prepared foods in the first place. It's just fruit, veggies, cheese, bread, greens. That's what there is to eat, so that's what I eat.

I buy bags of mixed frozen vegetables and then mix them in to whatever I'm making for dinner. E.g. if I'm having pasta, I'll throw some meat and veg into the sauce and serve it all on the pasta. I eat way more vegetables when it's mixed in to the main dish, than if I have them as a side.
I don't really use any tricks to eat more fruit. I just buy the ones I like and have them ready to snack on. I buy a lot of bananas, apples, grapes, etc that you can mostly just grab and eat as desired.

Veggies have never been a problem for me. Fruit always has been tho.
My solution for that is making a smoothie every morning while I wait for my coffee to brew.

For vegetables I throw everything into a big stew with a lot of different things (kale, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, potato, mushrooms, tofu, garlic, beans), lots of hot sauce, seasoning, olive oil, etc. and eat the same thing every day, for the most part. I don't eat enough fruit but I do have a handful of dried fruit with oats every day

I mostly eat vegetables raw with some hummus. Since it's so simple, it's easy to do on a daily basis. Mostly just rinse them in water and chop them up, so I can eat them by hand or with a fork. After getting used to this method and doing this on a regular basis, I feel much healthier and better in general. So I associate the process of preparation and eating them with feeling good, which encourages me to continue to do so on a regular basis. Also, I don't buy much processed foods at the grocery store, so there's less bad food available to me to eat at home. Since vegetables and fruit are the primary options available, I tend to eat them instead of something less healthy.

Buying em in the first place, if I got em, I'm definetely eating it.

When it's hot I like snacking on frozen mango pieces. They sell bags of them in supermarkets. Frozen blackberries and raspberries are also great.
I also like putting vegetables into curry and soup because personally I like my ratio of solid "food" to liquid curry/broth to be higher.
- How do you make a curry?
  
  Disclaimer: I make curry from premade pastes and blocks, not from scratch. I don't love cooking that much, haha.
  For Japanese curry from curry blocks: Boil hard vegetables and meat in water until they're mostly cooked, then stir in some curry blocks and make them dissolve in the hot water. Add soft vegetables. Adjust thickness and saltiness. Done.
  For Thai curry from curry paste: Boil hard vegetables and meat in some coconut milk until mostly cooked, then mix in some curry paste and the rest of the coconut milk. Add soft vegetables. Adjust spiciness. Done.
  Hard vegetables (vegetables that are hard to overcook):
  potato
  onion
  carrot
  mushroom
  Soft vegetables:
  zucchini
  broccoli
  cauliflower

I eat fruits and vegetables with my meals.

I drink a cup of carrot juice every day. I eat other fruits and vegetables too, but always have my carrot juice. I made it a habit to drink a cup every morning.

I was always taught to eat veggies, so I kinda feel bad every time I don't. Therefore veggies haven't ever really been an issue. Fruit is a different issue though. I used to always eat cookies or something a few hours after dinner when I got hungry again. After I decided that they probably wasn't the healthiest of habits, I replaced that with eating fruit. I don't even have snacks and cookies in my house anymore most of the time, so I'm kinda forced to alleviate any hungry feeling with fruit.

I actually did a lot of work to figure out how to eat healthier in a more sustainable way. I wrote a spreadsheet to tally what my diet looked like and what I might be missing nutritionally, found good sources of those missing things and picked ones that I liked the taste of.
Carrots are a good source of vitamin A so I eat them pickled or in salads
Guava is a good source of potassium and vitamin C and I just eat them straight because theyre tasty.
Broccoli has vitamin C and K so I mix them into mac and cheese or eat them with spicy hummus.
Green onions have a lot of vitamin K in them so I use them in salad, on burgers, wherever you would use onions.
Jalapenoes are another good source of vitamin C so they go in salad, on sandwiches, burgers etc. anything I want to be a bit less bland.
Sweet peppers are a good source of vitamin C, are colorful and have antioxidants so I either put them in salad or eat them with hummus.
Avocadoes are a good source of healthy fat, fiber and potassium so I either eat them straight, on sandwiches, or in salads.
Frozen peaches usually have vitamin C added to them and are available when fresh peaches generally aren't so theyre a good source of vitamin C while being tasty
Krautburgers can have shredded carrots, cabbage and mushrooms in them.
Burritos you can have tomatoes, green onion, olives, jalapenoes and beans.
Yogurt and fruit
Fruit salad

Instead of trying to eat more, think what do you want to cut down? Meat? Carbs?
Then cut those down and replace with a veg dish instead. Buying a vegetarian cookbook helps. You don’t need to go vegetarian, but you’ll find great recipes for vegetables, instead of as an afterthought.
With pretty much any vegetable, salt, pepper, olive oil and crushed garlic roasted in the oven for 20 minutes is tasty.
For me, I’m trying to eat a more Mediterranean diet, for my health, so that means curing meat and carbs and having lots of veg and herbs and nuts. When I make something, i think to myself, what veg would work with this recipe and add that as an extra.

Just eat them.
There is no trick that will make you think an apple is actually pie or make kale taste just like potato chips.
Try new stuff. Go to the Asian grocery store and buy random fruits and veggies you haven't seen before and try them. Worst case you hate them, but you seem to be there already, best case you love them.

I use the trick that I’m an adult. It seems to help a lot.
- Why be rude to a stranger?
  
  They must be esting all the vegies they don't like because it makes them feel like a big boy / girl
  
  What’s rude about what I said? It’s true.

Have you tried punching "batch recipes kale" into a search engine? (but instead of kale, put whichever vegetable you want to eat more of)
"Batch recipes" are basically like meal prep. And they often taste amazing.
My reasoning is: if you have leftovers in your fridge that are veggie-laden, tasty, and convenient, odds are you'll be getting your veggies without even trying.

I watch geezer TV and see ads for those "Fruits and Vegetables" pills. I'm not wasting my money on those! But the ads show delicious-looking fresh produce, which reminds me how good they can taste.
Eating a salad of plain dumb lettuce makes me feel like a moo-cow, so I make sure to add something like bits of apple, or grapes sliced in half, avocado, tomatoes, dried cranberries, fresh strawberries. Crumbled queso fresco or your cheese of choice, and nuts tossed in a hot pan for a minute with just a drizzle of maple syrup and cinnamon aren't vegetables but they help a salad feel like a meal.
I like to chop and rinse a head of romaine, keep it in the fridge and toss a handful of that, a handful of "spring mix" baby greens, and a handful of baby spinach into my salad spinner, rinse it and mix it in the water, and spinspinspin it dry. Even though they're "washed 3 times" it really freshens the flavor. And it's fun, pushpushpushing the big button. Get a salad spinner if you don't have one.
If baby spinach or baby kale starts to look tired,, or you're tired of it, throw it in a stew or curry, under it instead of (or under) the rice. The heat will wilt it away to practically nothing and you'll get your nutrients.

I am a vegan. The only thing I eat is fruits and vegetables. And some grains too.
- Cringe

I like most veg and fruit. I suppose you are looking for palatable ways of eating these? One veg I don't like is eggplant, but it's actually passable as lasagna or prepared as a schnitzel.

I try to sneak them in as part of other meals, even if I don't like the vegetable. Like if I have a burrito bowl I will put carrots in it along with everything else, or a pizza I will put green peppers on it along with pepperoni.
Fruits I don't do as well on, if I get frozen yogurt I will get rare fruits like mango, and I drink fruit juice.
I try to eat a variety of foods as much as possible.

Tricks? I just enjoy them. But I think the most important part of making sure you're eating enough of anything in a healthy and varied diet is to meal plan. I grocery shop to accommodate most everything I need for the week with some gaps here and there for leftovers and eating out. I usually eat Greek yogurt with fresh berries, walnuts, granola, and chia seeds for lunch. So I'll stock a big tub of yogurt and a couple packs of whatever berries look good that week. Sometimes I'll get tired of yogurt, so I'll eat some eggs or leftovers. Dinner is where most of the planning lies. I stock a few regular items that I always know I can make different meals from in a pinch and then I plan maybe 1 or 2 meals that require more planning and non-regular grocery items. So for regular items, I like to keep chicken pre-processed and prepared in the freezer, potatoes, rice, onions, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, and lettuce. Those items plus whatever I have in the way of canned goods can make a lot of different meals such as cream of mushroom chicken, chicken sandwiches, chicken stir-fry, etc. For the in-depth meals I either plan to pick up what I need to make something that week, or I make a workhorse meal that makes a ton of food that I can process or freeze for use later to make quick easy meals. Some examples of this include pot pie filling, pesto, or raw falafel. All of these take at least an hour usually more to prepare a massive batch. But now that it's done, I have many many meals that I can eat just from thawing out a portion from the freezer. So there you have it. My only tricks are that I enjoy fruits and veggies and that I'm very well versed in meal planning. To be fair, meal planning is not easy and it is definitely a skill that I think everyone should learn to develop. But once you do, you won't need to worry about if you're getting enough of the foods you need because it's all part of the (meal) plan.

I make fruit a part of every breakfast. I plan the rest of my meals around veggies that are on sale. If it's a veg I don't really like (usually texture issues) I hide it in something. Risotto and pizza are two of my favorites.

There is no trick I only eat them because it is what I like to eat. For late breakfast fruits, and for dinner a big salad, nothing in between, easy to digest, full of energy all day.
- So why did you respond to the question? OP wants tricks, and you didn't provide any.
  
  The trick is no trick !