Eat more fruits and vegetables

I’ve really gotten into cooking Japanese food, and it’s fantastic-delicious, nutritious, and full of vegetables. Did I mention it´s delicious? I´ve been working my way through a cookbook called Washoku, by Elizabeth Andoh, and I can´t recommend it enough. Tonight I’m making soy-simmered kabocha squash, and I can’t wait to try it. I’ve always liked fruits and vegetables, but part of putting this goal up was to remember to cook and eat more of them!

You know what? I eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I’m going to mark this goal as ‘done.’

I just love anything sweet. Okay, apples are sweet, too, but it is just not the same. It is just hard to eat healthier.

This goal has been easy to fill lately for three reasons:

1) Apples. All my life I thought I hated apples. Red Delicious only fulfill half their promise, after all. About a 18 months ago, I started to try to eat more healthfully by buying little packages of precut apple slices for lunch. My friend thought this was ridiculous, so she introduced me to the Gala Apple. She also showed me how to core and wedge apples easily with a knife. Now I feel silly. I’ve missed out on decades of apples just because I didn’t know how to wedge them properly. My recent favorite breakfast has been a microwaved Gala Apple, cored and dressed with a little sugar and ginger. So satisfying.

2) Apple pears, also known as Asian pears. I recently moved to a house with a very mature Asian pear tree. I also figured out that this tree has at least two, perhaps three, varieties of Asian pears on its branches (gotta love the miracle of horticulture). One is a large baseball-sized Asian pear with a juicy sweet taste reminiscent of wine or bubble gum. The other is a tennis-ball sized Asian pear that is very green, with a crisp, light taste, which is perfect for side dishes. I could just live in that tree. We’re down to our last bag which is sad. But I can’t stretch out the Asian pears because the owner of the house doesn’t believe that fruit stays good in the fridge for months, even though apples and apple pears do. It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to eat through all those pears….

3) An app for an Apple product. I recently got an iPhone, and a very popular app is the weight loss app Lose It! It’s much simpler than using pad and paper, and just seeing the real-time calorie count of the day makes it that much easier to choose the apple over the donut.

Eating fruit is now actually second nature now, to the point where I dread going to someplace like Starbucks or Denny’s. Most days a baked apple or sliced up banana in milk for breakfast would really be more satisfying than any of the pastries in the case or pancakes on the menu. (And please don’t suggest oatmeal as an alternative, because I think that oatmeal is gross!)

So yesterday, I went for this York Trip and then for a party at my friend’s place… and that was that!

I had hardly 1 fruit and 2 portions of veggie. So time to re-start the pyramid again today.

Since, I find it difficult to tackle with non-specific/non-quantifiable goals and because am obsessed with the numbers 8 and 28, the goal is to 8 portions of fruits/vegetables for 28 consecutive days.

I know I can eat more fruits and veggies if they are in my house but lately my parents havin been buying ANY fruits and veggies because nothing good is in season. I can’t wait til September (apple season!!) this is going to be a major goal for me after I get more water into my diet :0) Wish me luck!

So far so good. Eating less fat over all, because of trying to force veggies and fruits into my diet. This is a really good thing for someone to do.

Positive effects:
- Added fiber (yeah, whatever, it’s a good thing)
- Less calores consumed
- A wider range of nutrients available to your body without vitamins
- “Cleaner” effect on meals. Makes sitting down to a breakfast fry up sort of disgusting. Tastey, but disgusting.

After a month of doing this, I’ll consider it done and a habit.