How to Eat More Fruits & Veggies in Five Simple Steps

If your family is anything like ours was, your diets are noticeably lacking in the fresh produce department. It can seem daunting, and even impossible, to change your eating habits long-term.

We’ve found a few easy ways to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into our diets. Hopefully they can work for you, too!

1. START SMALL

Choose one time of day to eat a fruit or vegetable - pick whichever is your favorite. This will help you get used to eating something plant-based on a regular basis. It doesn’t necessarily need to be at the exact same time every day; rather, it should be for the same snack or meal each day. So, for example, if you always have a morning snack to hold you over to lunch, have a cup of unsweetened applesauce in addition to whatever you normally eat.

2. INCREASE GRADUALLY

Once you’re in the habit of eating a serving of produce at one snack or meal time per day (for us, it took about a week), pick a second one to add in. An easy one for us was steamed veggies at dinnertime. You can find all kinds of vegetables, with or without seasoning or sauce, in convenient steam-in-a-bag packages in the freezer at the grocery store. This is how we worked our way into eating veggies every day. It was super easy to just pop a bag in the microwave when our entree was almost done cooking.

3. BUY FROZEN

Speaking of frozen veggies, you can also buy fruits frozen! They’re a great addition to yogurt, ice cream, or even to eat on their own. I used to get intimidated by buying a ton of fresh produce. I have no idea why, but I did. I would buy it, eat some of it, and end up throwing the rest away because I didn’t know what to do with it before it went bad. Buying mostly frozen produce kept us from wasting so much. We’d use only what we know we would eat, and the rest stayed frozen. Now that we’re so used to eating fruits and vegetables daily, we’re actually starting to buy more fresh so we can prep and pack it ourselves to freeze. It’s been a great way to save money on our grocery bill!

4. MIX IT UP

After you’ve got a good hold of eating a few different kinds of produce a few times a day, it will become easier to get creative with how you eat them. Search Pinterest or All Recipes for one-pot, one-pan, or Crock Pot meals to try out. Try roasting your veggies at dinner instead of steaming them. Make a fruit-based dessert. The options are endless!

5. JUICES & SMOOTHIES

These drinks have become our favorite way of getting a big boost in our produce intake. Smoothies tend to be better for fruits, but juices are great for both (they’re a perfect way to get those veggies in!). If you’re hesitant to invest in a juicer, I don’t blame you. They’re no small investment, and really, you don’t know if you’ll like the juices you make! I suggest, once again, to start small. I'll list two below (affiliate links) that I think are good; the first is one similar to what we currently use, and the second is what I'll be upgrading to when we're ready.

This one is an excellent option for beginner juicers; it’s relatively cheap on the juicer front, but it will still get the job done.

This one

  is a bit more expensive, but will handle lots of juicing for a lot longer. Plus, with the different method of extracting the juice (cold press), you’ll preserve more of the nutrients.

Smoothies can be made with your blender, some ice, yogurt, and just about any fruit you like; make sure you add one half or a whole banana to make it nice and thick!

For both smoothies and juices, just play around with the portions of each ingredient to figure out what you like. There's no wrong way to make them, so there's no pressure to do it exactly right.

Happy eating!

xoxo Christi Lee