How to Get More Greens in Your Diet

It's easy to get caught up in a busy lifestyle and put healthy eating on the back burner. But making smart meal and snack choices has a significant impact on your overall health and wellness.

The Nutrition Source, a healthy eating news collective by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, states that a diet that's rich in wholesome foods like fruits and vegetables can reduce blood pressure, maintain blood sugar levels, and reduce the risk of digestive issues, heart disease, stroke, and even certain cancers.

Adding more leafy greens to your diet, specifically, can improve your health and well being thanks to its low calories, high fiber content, and abundance of essential vitamins and minerals. Leafy greens are high in:

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin L
• Folate
• Iron
• Calcium
• Potassium

But even with how nutritious greens can be, we know they're not always the most appealing. Salads certainly aren't for everyone.

Interested in learning how to eat greens when you hate them? We've got you covered:

1. Mix Them in Your Smoothies

Smoothies make delicious snacks and meal replacements. Typically, smoothies are loaded with different fruits, seeds, and milk (or water), but you can also sneak leafy greens into the mix. In most cases, the fruit will mask the flavor of the vegetables so you can reap the health benefits of the leafy greens without the taste.

If you want to know how to get your greens without eating them at all, you can add a green super food powder to your smoothie instead.

2. Juice Your Leafy Greens

Like creating smoothies, juicing your greens and drinking them as a beverage is another simple way to incorporate them into your diet. If you want to mask the flavor of the greens in your juice, try a combination of granny smith apples, ginger, celery stalks, lemon, and kale. The apple and lemon will overpower the taste of the kale and leave you feeling refreshed and satisfied without the bitter end.

3. Add Them To Your Favorite Soup Recipe

Soups are another great place to sneak your leafy greens. Kale, chard, or spinach make great options and can work in virtually any type of soup. A sausage soup with potato, onion, garlic, and heavy cream can benefit from a vegetable like spinach, for example. Even an open-faced chicken pot pie recipe can taste better with leafy greens.

4. Use Them As Wraps

If you want to lay off the carbs and add more leafy greens to your diet, stop using a traditional pita or tortilla wrap and try a lettuce wrap instead! Just load all of your favorite ingredients into a large Bibb lettuce leaf, and roll it up. You can also use greens like collard, Swiss chard, romaine, or cabbage. This can make a great lunch or dinner option with the whole family.

5. Create Your Own Sauce

Like soup, leafy greens can make their way into a homemade sauce without an issue. If you really want to learn how to eat greens when you hate them, don't chop them into your sauce recipe. Instead, blend them completely down to a purree. This will give the sauce a smooth consistency, and the flavor of the greens will likely mend into the other ingredients.

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