How many fruits and vegetables do you eat?

Sep5Bride · November 2013

Hi ladies,

I've always thought of myself as having a healthy diet, but as my daughter is starting to eat more table foods I'm realizing just how unbalanced my diet really is. I eat way too many carbs, and not nearly enough fruits and vegetables. For fruits and vegetables I usually only have a banana for a morning snack, an apple and baby carrots with lunch, and maybe a steamed green vegetable with supper but not every day (horrendous, I know!). It's not that I don't like them, I just don't have many other ideas and rarely get a chance to cook. So I was wondering, how many servings of fruits and vegetables are the rest of you working moms eating, and what are they? I could really use some ideas!!

emberlee3 · November 2013

I try to eat veggies with lunch and dinner every day. Usually I bring leftovers, so that makes the lunch veggie easy. Dinner (almost) always includes fruit and 1-2 veggies. DD loves avocado and sliced tomatoes, so I often just add one or both to our dinner menu. I eat 2-3 servings of fruit, usually with breakfast and as a snack.

jlaOK · November 2013

I sometimes eat fruit or vegetables during the day (spinach in my eggs or lettuce and tomato on a sandwich) and we have either a fruit or vegetable at dinner. My DS doesn't like many vegetables so I've been bad about cooking them because I hate when he refuses to eat them (other than the bite he has to take). We eat a lot of fruit - bananas, strawberries, grapes, apples. I also will make a spinach salad as a side a lot because it so easy.

mae0111 · November 2013

I typically eat a huge salad for lunch every day, and I try to get a lot of different things in it - mixed greens, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, beans, etc. I try to eat a piece of fruit during the day at some point. In the summer, I almost always bring a fruit salad for a snack at work - usually some kind of melon and berries mixed in. This time of year, the fruit isn't great around here - just apples. I get sick of apples quickly.

I also tend to eat a lot of soups this time of year. My favorite is full of tomatoes, carrots, celery, beans, and zucchini.

So, not as much as I should every day, but I'm trying to get better!

MommyAtty · November 2013

It's amazing how trying to get veggies and fruits in your LO brings into focus your own eating habits. I prob get 3-4. I strive for 5.

Nechie122 · November 2013

I have a fruit with both breakfast and lunch, then a large salad before dinner. Dinner is then served with another serving of vegetables. So if a "serving" is about half a cup to a cup, I'm probably getting 5-7.

blushingbride_08 · November 2013

I drink a green smoothie each morning with 2 servings of veggies and a half serving of fruit. Then I have a serving of fruit with breakfast and a serving of veggies with lunch and dinner. So I usually get 5 or more servings a day.

Sep5Bride · November 2013

Nicb13 said:
I have a fruit packed smoothie every morning for breakfast, a salad with probably 3-4 different vegetables in it for lunch almost daily but dinner is hit or miss.
We do focus on eating much more balanced, healthy meals now that we have DS. He kicks our butts in gear!

Ooo, the smoothie is a great idea! Salad too! Thanks for the responses, ladies, I appreciate it!

nosoup4u · November 2013

It's not the season for it, but a CSA is a great way to eat more veggies. I plan for 2-3 veggies with whatever is made for dinner (stew w veg, as a side, etc), and then I usually use those for lunch during the week. I don't do much fruit, usually whatever's seasonal, and only one per day. Other than that, I try to have prepped salad for dinners, hothouse cucumbers and grape tomatoes on hand during the winter. And DS2 loves avocado, so we usually have those around. One of my favorites lunches for work is salad w chopped hardboiled eggs, deli meat, and whatever veggies are around.

APendola · November 2013

I eat lots of fruit. I usually have some fruit in my breakfast (ie. some berries or a banana) and I'll bring two pieces of fruit to work as snacks (ie. an apple and an orange).

I try to have veggies with lunch and dinner always. Meals I had in this week with veggies:

stir fry with rice, a protein, with green beans and broccoli
Sandwich and homemade minestrone soup (I had about 8 or 9 types of veggies in this soup and I had enough soup for DH and to have at three meals)
Pasta with spinach pesto and peas

rdbabygrl · November 2013

We switched to a vegetarian diet this last month. Soooo good and we feel sooo much better!

LoCarb · November 2013

I eat fruit and salads daily. Usually 3-4 servings/day

AliW220 · December 2013

Sep5Bride said:

Hi ladies,

I've always thought of myself as having a healthy diet, but as my daughter is starting to eat more table foods I'm realizing just how unbalanced my diet really is. I eat way too many carbs, and not nearly enough fruits and vegetables. For fruits and vegetables I usually only have a banana for a morning snack, an apple and baby carrots with lunch, and maybe a steamed green vegetable with supper but not every day (horrendous, I know!). It's not that I don't like them, I just don't have many other ideas and rarely get a chance to cook. So I was wondering, how many servings of fruits and vegetables are the rest of you working moms eating, and what are they? I could really use some ideas!!

We eat very similarly!!! Well, I've been BORED with apples at lunch, so now I've switched to oranges. I do some sort of veggie each night, but not always one of those super healthy green ones.

Fiance is crazy picky about fruits and veggies... he will eat: pears, apples, carrots. No joke. That's it. I'm that mom that sneaks veggies into dinner, except it's to hide them from my fiance, not the kids! LOL!

We live by our slowcooker, it's easy to make stews & soups that contain lots of veggies - tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, zucchinis, winter squashes. Tomato sauce even counts. Creamy based foods do well with peas, or like chicken broccoli alfredo. Add pumpkin puree into pancake batter - bam, veggies for breakfast!
I've started to keep a decent variety of the veggie steamer bags in the freezer. If I realize our dinner is lacking some good veggies, I throw a bag in to micro. Problem solved with minimal effort!
Another thing that has helped in food prep - I pre-chop a whole batch of celery and also multiple green peppers, divide it up in ~1/3 cup quantities in a muffin tin, add enough water to hold the bits together, and freeze. Once solid, I pop them out and store in freezer bag. Then when I'm making stews, I put in a few "discs" of what I need. Before, I would only use a little bit and the rest would rot in the fridge, it's a great way to keep a larger variety on hand.
Good luck with your veggie exploring