Why Vegetables are Good for You

According to U.S. Dietary Guidelines, adults and children alike should have from 5 to 13 servings of fruits and veggies a day, each serving at least 1/2 cup. While this is beyond what most people currently consume, it's not an impossible task.

For veggies, simply include them with foods you and your family already like.

In general, you need to eat a wide variety of vegetables, including plenty of the bright- and deep-colored ones, to get all the vitamins, minerals and fiber that veggies have to offer. With the exception of soy foods, though, the protein in plant foods is incomplete. It lacks one or more of the protein building blocks that your body can't make.

You can mix and match different plant foods to make their protein complete. But even many vegetarians find that it's easier to simply include a complete protein source, such as eggs or milk foods, in their meals. Nutrient-dense eggs provide not only some of the highest quality protein available but, except for vitamin C, eggs also contain varying amounts of all the essential vitamins, including those that are not abundant in plant foods.

It's simple to combine eggs and veggies in satisfying entrees. For instance, you can turn a salad into a quick-fix main dish by starting with greens -; the darker green, the better nutrient content. Toss with other vegetables, perhaps whatever is coming up in your home garden or is most appealing at the store.

Then, top with wedged, sliced or chopped eggs to add the protein you need. Finish the unique salad off with a hurry-up, homemade hot dressing. This salad is especially easy to make if you keep a dozen hard-cooked eggs chilled in the fridge. You can store the eggs for a week after cooking and use them for handy snacks, too.

Warm Mimosa Salad

6 servings

Ingredients

• 6 cups loosely packed torn mixed greens (about 9 oz.)

• 6 hard-cooked eggs, chopped

• 2 small or 1 medium zucchini, cut into julienne strips (about 2 to 2 1/2 cups)

• 1 cup thinly sliced onion (about 1 medium)

• 2 tablespoons cooking oil

• 2/3 cup red wine vinegar

• 1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

• 1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, crushed

• 1 teaspoon sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1 large tomato, wedged (about 7 to 8 oz.)

Method

Tear greens into large bowl. Add eggs. Set aside. In 10-inch skillet or large saucepan over medium heat, cook zucchini and onion in hot oil, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender, about 4 to 5 minutes. In small bowl, stir together vinegar, mustard, seasoning, sugar and garlic powder. Pour over vegetables in skillet. Stir in tomato and cook until heated through, about 1 minute more. Pour over reserved greens. Gently toss until evenly coated with dressing. 

Serve immediately.

Danie de Villiers - Freelance writer

Keep Your Cool!

Here are some good tips for keeping your cool when your stress levels are high:

• Eat more fruits and veggies; limit your intake of meat, sugar, coffee, processed food, and preservatives (for healthy recipes visit my food blog - Recipes 101)

• Drink more water(at least 8 glasses; choose warm water over cold)

• Exercise regularly(take a walk for 30 minutes, you don't have to stretch too much or lift weights)

• Try meditation

• Help others

• Give thanks for what you have; count your blessings

Make a commitment to eliminate stress in your life and act on it. Get all the help you need whether it be from books, resources, other people, etc.

Danie de Villiers - Freelance Writer

Recipe for Glazed Baby Carrots

This method of cooking carrots emphasizes their natural sweetness. 

Ingredients

• 3 cups baby carrots
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 tablespoon runny honey*
• Salt and ground black pepper

Cook carrots in plenty of boiling, salted water until tender. Drain well. Tip into a warmed dish, add turmeric and honey and toss well to combine. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

* Runny honey: Warming honey makes it more liquid and easier to work with. Stand the jar in a saucepan of hot water for a few minutes, until the honey softens. Before removing it from the jar, also warm the spoon; you will find the honey slides off easily.

Fresh or Packaged Food?

Prepared food may be convenient to use, but it is important to balance packaged and fresh foods for a healthy food intake.

Packaged foods are convenient because they are easy to buy and prepare. They are obviously a bonus to anyone who has to cook for the family every day or comes home tired from work. But when we consider our diet, we have to think not only about nutritional value. 

Drawbacks of prepared food

Whenever food is processed in any way, some of the nutrients will be lost or destroyed. The main case of nutritional loss is cooking or dehydration, which is applied to many fresh foods during industrial processing to reduce the enzyme activity, which would cause them to go bad. This is especially the case with tinned foods, which tend to lose vitamin C, folic acid and thiamine, all of which are heat sensitive. Protein also does not stand up well to heat. 

Apart from nutrient losses, many packaged foods are inferior to fresh ones because they contain additives. These include those chemical stabilizers, flavorings, colorings, antioxidants, and preservatives which are intended to improve qualities, color, taste, and texture. Medical opinion differs widely on the effects of these additives. Some doctors argue that many of them can cause allergic reactions. 

Nevertheless, it makes sense to keep to a minimum the amount of unnecessary chemicals we consume. The more food we buy fresh and prepare ourselves the more we can cut out chemicals that have no nutritional value but are added solely to make food more attractive or to preserve it better.

This is even more important when we look at compound foods made up to manufacturer’s recipes. Most packaged sweets, biscuits and cakes, for example, contain not only chemical additives especially artificial flavoring but also white flour and hard margarine rather than wholemeal flour and soft margarine, which are recommended by nutritionists. In addition ‘all in one’ packaged meals tend to include flavorings like mono-sodium glutamate. These flavorings have recently come under suspicion as being the cause of dizziness, migraine and addiction. 

Generally, however packaged foods are not in themselves harmful; the point is simply that they should be eaten in moderation rather than being a major part of your diet. And you should be aware of what you are buying and consuming: make a habit of reading the labels of packaged foods and choosing those, which contain fewest unwanted ingredients. 

Using fresh foods 

Though you might not have the time or the inclination to stop buying packaged foods altogether, you should try to eat some fresh foods every day. Fresh produce not only contains more nutrients, it generally has a more attractive appearance and texture and can provide a wide variety of interesting textures. And it doesn’t necessarily take longer to prepare; for example fresh  fish can be grilled in the same amount of time that it takes to cook fish fingers, potatoes baked in their skin need a minimum of preparation and many other vegetables and most fruits can be eaten raw, either plain or combined in a salad. The key to a good diet is to maximize the convenience of processed foods when you need to use them, but at the same time to include as much fresh foods as and when you can.