5 Easy Ways to Get More Greens in Your Diet

When it comes to our diets, there is little agreement about what we should be eating. There are vegans, vegetarians, Keto-fans, and everything in between.

Then of course there's the "Kaleman Diet":

But seriously, people can get adamant about their opinions on diet! Maybe you’ve experienced this? On social media, perhaps?

I’m certainly not going down THAT rabbit hole! (Here’s where you sigh with relief.)

But, interestingly, almost all diets do have something in common.

The one thing that they DO agree on is the necessity of vegetables to a healthy diet. Especially leafy greens!

Recently I realized that I needed to get back on track eating a diversity of veggies, especially greens. This spring was pretty tough for us die-hard local eaters, because normally we have our hoophouse that overwinters greens for us to eat, but we had to cut the plastic in December. So that option was out.

I was forced into the grocery store, settling for the same 3-pack of organic romaine hearts every week “to get my greens in...”

Now that the “harvest season” is upon us at the farm, we are chock full of greens and other delicious things in our lives again. Yay!

Of course actually having that whole pile of appetizing greens in your fridge is indeed the first step towards eating more!

But really getting them all into your diet can be a little bit overwhelming.

Here’s where we can help with inspiration drawn from our own kitchen as well from those of our experienced CSA members!

5 Easy Ways to Get More Greens in Your Diet

1. Eat your greens for breakfast

Have you ever done this? If not, you are seriously missing out! Three great ideas for getting greens into breakfasts are:

• Steamed as a side to your eggs, etc…
  This is a quick solution to not having prepared anything else ahead. In fact we had a breakfast this morning of Scrambled Eggs with Garlic Scapes and a side of buttered steamed kale. But, will it do ya? It should. It gets Farmer Gene all the way to lunch without a snack!
• Cooked into your eggs…
  My favorite go-to: frittata, which I made last night with kale (check out my how-to here) or try steamed or sautéed greens in your omelettes or quiches or even in a strata!
• Blended into your Green Smoothies!
  I am certainly no expert on doing this…yet! CSA member Colleen is famous for her green smoothies! Here’s her “Kale Storm” formula: mango, banana, kale, spinach, lemon & apple cider. That sure sounds like it would wake ya up!

2. Cook your greens to reduce bulk

To cook your greens may seem obvious, but really it is a great tip to get you to eat more of them by reducing their physical volume! On Wednesdays, I often stare at my fridge, with no clue where how to fit it all. If you are a CSA member or a gardener, might you relate??

Try the tip from CSA member Brita, and steam all of your greens from the week together to take up less space in the fridge. Yep, you can even add the tops of radishes or salad turnips, kale, chard, beet greens, Asian greens… You name it. Then you can add them to your stir-fries, frittatas, soups, etc. really quickly throughout the week. I don’t know about you, but if it saves space and time, I’m sold! Thanks, Brita!

PS: You can even sauté lettuce to reduce bulk… Sauteed Romaine Lettuce anyone?

 

3. Pre-prep your salads for the week and eat one every day

Here’s is another seemingly “no brainer.” But somehow I had never done this before learning it from experienced CSA members. First, take your weekly heads of lettuce, shred them, wash them, and spin them dry in your salad spinner. (don’t have one? Dry them between two towels.) Then either

• store it all in a big lidded bowl in the fridge;
• OR portion them out individually into mason jars for quick grabbing for the next few days.

I can’t tell you how many CSA members told me that they do this! Now, I do it every week. And I promise it has us eating more greens! (And having less go to waste due to rotting in the fridge!)

The only catch you need to know about is, don’t put the dressing until you plan to eat it! Otherwise it will get soggy and you’ll be sorry.

4. Blanch and freeze your cooking greens

Delicious green bounty fresh from the garden won’t always be in your fridge. So if you get overloaded beyond the great tips above, don’t worry. Simply blanch and freeze your greens for use in the winter. Here’s a basic how-to:

1. Wash your greens well and tear up into whatever size pieces you desire.
2. Heat a large pot of water to a boil.
3. Submerge greens into boiling water for 2 minutes. A removable steamer basket works well here, but is not required.
4. Remove from boiling water and quickly plunge into ice-cold water to prevent further cooking.
5. When cool, squeeze out the water from your greens.
6. Pack into ziplock freezer bags, squeeze out the air, and label the contents with a date.

Then in the winter, thaw up those greens and throw them into a stir-fry, soup, or cooked eggie thing (think omlette, frittata, strata, etc. etc.). You won’t be sorry you didn’t compost your greens during peak season!

5. Increase your variety to keep it interesting

We hear this time and time again: that our CSA members love the variety that they get in their weekly CSA shares. They love trying new things (like Asian greens) and getting things that they wouldn’t otherwise buy from the grocery store (like kale).

This seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? But, it is so true! I can say from experience that the CSA pushes me to eat more quantity and more variety than I would if I shopped at the grocery store. And this time of year it is super greens heavy!

Do you eat as many greens as you would like?

If yes, let us know what YOUR secret is to eating your maximum of healthy greens!

If not, let us know which of these options was particularly helpful to you and that you might try!