Veggies Veggies and More Veggies

Hey Naturalistas

I thought I would share with you my journey to adding more veggies to my diet.  A few months ago I went to the doctor and found out I was severely anemic which made sense with how fatigued I felt a lot of times.  I had known for a long time that I just don't eat enough fruits and vegetables and I decided then that it was time.  I bought a juicer and you can read about my foray into juicing here: Hooked on the Juice.  I definitely recommend juicing.

Anyway, I can't say I grew up eating a lot of vegetables.  When I walk through the produce department at Publix, I have no idea what most of the vegetables are, how to prepare them or what they taste like.  Which is why I am experimenting and so far so good.

I started out with zucchini.  I had never tasted a zucchini in my life.  I made a chunky vegetable soup medley thingey (I have no idea what to call it) consisting of lots of peeled and sliced zucchini, corn, black beans, and tomato chunks.  It's not really soupy because it has so much veggies in it, it's more the consistency of chili minus the meat.  I add chili sauce and various seasonings.

Well, recently I decided to buy asparagus.  I had also never really eaten asparagus.  I decided to make it with this turkey sausage pasta that I had made before.  I just cooked the pasta as usual.  I cooked the sausage in a teaspoon of olive oil.  I then coat the asparagus in a wee bit of olive oil and grilled/stir fried it in same the pan so it gets the flavor of the sausage.  The asparagus ends up being crispy and quite yummy.  I added the asparagus and sausage to the pasta and I added marinara sauce (not shown).  And for the first time, I've enjoyed eating vegetables.  I plan to keep going with this and randomly add various veggies to my usual dishes or come up with new ones and see how it goes.

As a follow-up on my juicing, my digestive system did adjust and I have had no issues.  Along with taking daily iron supplements, I've found I have more energy and I have had no dizziness/light headed-ness and feeling overall better.  I've been juicing daily on and off (going on a vacation, running out of veggies and not having time to replenish, etc.) but trying to be more consistent with it.  I"m actually running to the gym right now then going to restock my veggies.  Right now I'm using cucumbers, carrots, celery, an apple and ginger and lime for flavor.