Healthy Eating >> How To Not Waste Vegetables

🙋‍♀️Raise your hand if your fridge is a hospice home for veggies. 🙋‍♀️

I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time buying vegetables as if I’m a completely different person from who I actually am. Through a lot of trial and error (and lots of gross bags of salad) I’ve learned a couple different ways to successfully eat more veggies and waste less food. I can’t pretend I use up what I buy every time, but these have helped reduce waste and eat more veggies.

So, if you want to know how to not waste vegetables, here’s what’s worked for me:

🥕 Buy veggies chopped and ready to cook. I have been meaning to chop and roast brussel sprouts for a week. It’s not happening. So this week I bought prechopped veggies (that were the same price had I bought them whole) and saved myself a lot of time I don’t have.

🥦 Frozen vegetables are still vegetables!! There are a ton of options in the freezer aisle. I love the steamer ones that include porosities because then all I need to worry about is a protein.

🥬 Bagged salads are a low effort way to get some veggies with your meals. They can come with everything you need are an easy way to add veggies to a simple meal. Frozen pizza, pasta dishes, burger, all are easy meals that go well with a salad with low effort.

🫑 There’s no shame in using a boxed meal. Sometimes you just gotta by and/or start with something easy. One example is hamburger helper. Carl loves hamburger helper. It’s a comfort nastalgic meal for him. So last night we had the Philly cheesesteak one and I added a big container of pre chopped bell peppers and onions. It got us a complete one pot meal with minimal effort.

🍅 Aim to purchase only 1-3 different veggies and choose ones you can use for multiple meals. The leftover bell peppers I can use in an omelet, for tacos, or mixed in a salad. You don’t need a bunch of different vegetables for a bunch of different recipes. Go with basic stuff so you have more opportunity to use it all up.

🧅 Freeze what you don’t eat. I might not finish the bell peppers in time, so I can spread them on a baking sheet to freeze, then dump in a bag to store in the freezer.

Also, if you’re trying to add more vegetables to your diet, don’t get tricked into thinking you should do a Whole 30 or 75 Hard because you “want the structure and accountability.” Been there, done that, 0 stars, do not recommend. If you want to know the why, visit my post: Why This Mom and Personal Trainer is Anti Whole 30 and 75 Hard (and what to do instead).