I’m always curious as to how I can easily improve my health, and I know one of the most powerful ways to improve health is by choosing what to eat. I know variety is the spice of life and that includes a wide variety of vegetables. So we eat on average 21 meals in 7 days (unless you’re intermittent fasting….more on that in another post) and I want to review the current variety of vegetables I eat in an average week and see if I fall short of 21 different vegetables. So here goes
- Baby spinach
- Cucumber
- Tomato
- Broccoli
- Beetroot
- Sweet potato
- Alfalfa sprouts
- Pumpkin
- Sweetcorn
- Rocket
- Snow peas
- Onion
- Mushrooms
- Zucchini
- Carrots
So I’ve listed my most common vegetables that I would purchase on an average week (mainly organic) and I’m eating two thirds of the concept of 21 different vegetables in a week! This makes me think what can I add to improve this variety. Here goes:
- Capsicum
- Squash
- Asparagus (although seasonal)
- Spring onion
- Aubergine/eggplant
- Bean sprouts
- Bok choy
- Kale
- Cabbage
- Cauliflower
So if you have a think about your usual favourite vegetables you buy/grow on a weekly basis, are you getting close to a variety of 21 vegetables? What extra/different veggies might you add to your weekly shop to increase the variety?
And why is it recommended to have a wide variety of vegetables in our nutritional intake?
Well each different vegetable provides different nutritional benefits to us, so to optimise our cellular needs through what we eat, we need a good variety of vegetables on a regular basis.