Remember Bo Derek and that Movie, 10? Well, here’s how I’m going to be a 10 in the health stakes: Make sure my fruit and vegetable intake reachs 10 every day.
That’s seven vegetables and three fruit a day. For fruitarian types it might mean five fruit and five vegetables. Vegeholics might prefer nine vegies and one fruit. Once anyone starts eating this way, it leaves a lot less room for garbage food. Also, it makes a game out of eating better. We can all count to 10, can’t we? What could be simpler? Whoever reaches 10 every day wins.
I’ve found that an easy way to do this is to prepare vegetable soup. I start with some vegetable stock and add onions (prefrying makes them yummiest), carrots, celery, capsicum, cabbage, kale, snow peas, corn, zucchini and pumpkin … or whatever vegetables that are in the fridge, really. I try to add something green near the end of the cooking period. Frozen peas, shredded kale or whole leaves of English spinach (for the English spinach, just add right at the end of the cooking period so it wilts.)
Throwing a pot of vegetable soup on the stove on Sunday means being sorted for lunches for at least part of the week or perfect for a soup starter every night before the main dish. Soup as an entree helps to control how much other food we eat for that meal.
If being a 10 sounds a bit too hard at the moment, maybe I could start by being a five and just gradually work my way up.
Next column, Let single ingredients shine. Sounds counterintuitive but I think it works.