The Best Way To Increase Your Vegetable Intake By 50%

Drum roll…..

By eating vegetables for breakfast!

Breakfast?

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Okay, okay, I understand that the idea may be weird to you. Well, it was weird to me, too, about 13 years ago.

But here we are today, and we eat vegetables for breakfast all the time and love it! In fact, when we don’t, I seriously miss it!

Veg for breakfast? How on earth did you think of that??? Were you raised that way?

Nope, maybe like you, I was raised on Frosted Flakes, Fruit Loops, Pop Tarts… Probably I shouldn’t keep going. You get the picture.

Closest thing to green in my breakfasts was… the dye color from my favorite brand, Capn' Crunch! Ha!

My journey to vegetables for breakfast

Actually, it all started for Gene and me when we apprenticed together at Fisher Farm in Winterport, Maine over a decade ago.

There was Swiss chard and kale growing literally right outside our front door (or should I say only door since it was a 12x15 foot cabin).

And we were living cheap. So, put two and two together. We had steamed greens and eggs from the farm every morning for breakfast! Fueled us for a day of hard work on the farm. Pretty sure it would do the same for you!

The math behind the claim

Gene, being the math guy, has calculated that if you only eat vegetables for 2 out of 3 meals per day, you are missing out on 1 meal per day's worth of possible vegetable consumption.

Eating vegetables for breakfast increases your vegetable consumption by 50% then! Voila!

Not a math person? Just take his word for it. It's good for you! And delicious!

You say, "Okay I'm interested. Where do I start?"  Well, check out...

My six favorite ways we eat veggies for breakfast

1. In an egg dish: Think frittata, quiche, strata, or even individual little frittata muffin thingies! My formula for a frittata with just about any veggie can be found here. Or try this week's CSA recipe: Delicata Skillet Meal found here.
    
2. Roasted and then repurposed (think home fries or hash): Now this topic should be a blog post itself! (Maybe I will do that in the winter!) Cube your root veggies, toss with olive oil and salt and pepper, and roast at 375 until soft and caramelized. Put in fridge until morning time. Re-fry up as home fries or a hash and viola! Delicious, easy, and fast veggies for breakfast!  
    
3. Fermented: We eat a fermented veggie with almost every meal including breakfast. Actually one of the best foods we’ve found to pair with our homemade kimchi is eggs in the morning. How to make your own? Check out my upcoming classes here. 
    
4. Sauteed: Yep, chop up some veggies and sauté them gently in butter and serve with your eggs or oatmeal as a side dish for breakfast. This works great with salad turnips, radishes, a handful of cabbage, onions, peppers, oh I could go on and on. Oh and we eat sautéed summer squash for breakfast pretty much every day of the week during August… Try it and I promise you won’t regret it!  Our go-to is Sauteed Summer Squash with Cheese found here.
    
5. Lightly steamed: This works especially well with fast cooking veggies like greens, green beans, carrots, and summer squash. Literally this is fast and easy and delicious! Just add salt and pepper plus a little vinegar to the greens and there you go!  Like I said earlier, we used to alternate between kale and chard every morning when we apprenticed at a vegetable farm.
    
6. Veggie pancakes: Oh boy, does our family love these! These are more like a “weekend” breakfast option at our house because they take a little more time than the options above. But they’re well worth it and a tasty way to get a whole bunch more veggies into your diet during breakfast than you could pretty much any other way! Find our favorite recipe here under Cabbage, but you can use any kind of green (or combo of greens) including but not limited to: kale, cabbage (any color), spinach, pac choi, etc!

Hey, how does the idea of veg-for-breakfast sit with you?

If you’re on the fence about it, I suggest just trying it once and seeing how you like it!

I know that for us, real food for breakfast has been a game changer for increasing the amount of veggies we get in our diet. Hope these ideas help you try it, too!

If you already eat veggies for breakfast, what is YOUR favorite way to include them? Leave a comment below and let me know!