E.Y.G!

E.Y.G:  Eat Your Greens!

I was sitting down to write this weeks blog on how to include more veggies and fruit daily in our eating plan (and enjoy them), when I decided to first take a look at how the Weight Watchers team was tackling the topic.  (This has been the topic in the meeting room all week).  I came across this article on the Weight Watchers Website and I thought to myself that could not say it better - truly, this is great!

I need to eat more fruits and veggies!

Article By: Leslie Fink, MS, RD

Need ideas for coping with restaurant buffets? Want some good snack ideas?

In our Q&A series, WeightWatchers.com nutritionist and food editor Leslie Fink, MS, RD, answers questions about food, nutrition and weight loss.

Q: Do you have any ideas for fitting fruits and vegetables into my diet? I find it hard to eat them during the day, and then I try to cram three or four servings into my dinner.

A: Some people are lucky enough to like cherries more than chocolate, and carrot sticks more than chips (yes, people like that do exist!). For others, though, eating a salad can be an arduous task. The best way for those people to meet their fruit and veggie requirements? Sneak them in! Or, center meals around them.

9 Stealth Strategies

1. Use vegetables to add bulk to individual foods and meals.
Fill out a turkey wrap with roasted red peppers (water-packed), rely on sliced mushrooms and diced onions to add volume to omelets, and shred carrots and zucchini into tomato sauce.

2. Plan for meals that include lots of vegetables.
Try chicken fajitas, shrimp and vegetable kabobs or a tofu stir-fry.

3. Keep small packages of dried fruit in your desk drawer or car.
For nutrient-dense, midday pick-me-ups, look for 1/2-ounce boxes of raisins or divide a large pack of dried apricots among small plastic bags.

4. Purchase prepackaged low-fat stir-fry meals.
Find those that contain vegetables, sauce and seasonings in your supermarket's freezer section. Simply cook with the lean protein of your choice.

5. Think of fruit as a dessert.
Top yogurt and ice cream with blueberries, halved seedless red grapes or diced bananas. Or, top a low-calorie brownie with sliced strawberries and nonfat whipped topping.

6. Drink your fruit.
Whip up smoothies by blending together fruit, low-fat yogurt and ice.

7. Keep fresh, cut-up veggies in the fridge for between-meal snacking.
Enjoy celery sticks with mango-peach salsa or sugar snap peas dipped into roasted red-pepper-flavored hummus.

8. Rely on salad bars to get fresh, ready-to-eat vegetables in a hurry.
Buy sliced peppers, broccoli and onions for a stir-fry or diced tomatoes and spinach for a last-minute omelet or frittata.

9. Don't be afraid to mix your fruits and vegetables.
Toss diced apples into a salad instead of fatty croutons, and rely on dried fruit to give your salad texture and a color boost. One of my all-time favorites is mixed greens, thinly sliced pears, goat cheese and dried cranberries drizzled with a light balsamic vinaigrette.

7 Spring "in season" veggies in your store
We talked a lot about what's in season at the moment in the meeting this week and I wanted to give you a rundown of what's around and a brief idea of how to use them:

1. Pea shoots
Tender and sweet, best in stir-fries or salads.  I eat them raw as a snack, they're more filling than you imagine.

2. Garlic scapes
These are fun: and have a short season, they're the flowering stalks of garlic plants. They're sweet and mild, use then when you use onion and garlic as an alternative.

3. Fiddlehead ferns
Just when they start to rise up from the forest floor, some varieties of ferns can be a delicious, sophisticated treat, especially when paired with heat (as in chilies) and/or acids (as in lemon juice or vinegar).
4. Ramps
Grow wild and are a type of oniony, leek-y veggie.  They're revered among foodies. Aromatic and tender, don't use them in complicated dishes.  Let them shine through.  Use the bulb and the leaves.

5. Fava beans
Very popular in mediterranean cooking.  They're delicious in veggie soups - try making a minestrone or cooked and fork mashed as a side alternative to potatoes, rice or polenta with your pork or lamb chops.

6. Rhubarb 
Is prolific right now and is a pretty pinkish green stalk, known as a fruit.  But it's perfect with red onion and herbs in pork or chicken stir-fry.
7. White asparagus
We eat so much green asparagus.  Have you tried the white ones?  They're kept in the dark to prevent them from turning green and are delicate and delicious.  Roast them or grill them, just as you do with their green counterparts, but keep the preparation simple to make the most of the flavor.

Are you looking forward to a fitness challenge?

Sneak Peek - coming in May look out for...

Walk. Jog. Dance. Swim. It doesn’t matter!  LiveLifeActive, replaces last year’s Walk-It Challenge and takes it to a new level, it'll run from May 27 to July 14.  
I can't wait!

LOCATING WEIGHT WATCHERS PRODUCTS:

There is a helpful section of the WW Website that is dedicated to supermarket products; those labeled as Weight Watchers, such as ice creams, breads, cheeses and plenty of others, our partner products, such as Smart Ones and also endorsed products, such as Progresso Soups.  Click on this link to get you there:  www.WeightWatchers.com/shop.


Occasionally a member will ask me to help them locate a supermarket that carries a particular Weight Watchers product.  Did you know that you can do that online yourself?  Weight Watchers has a product locator website.


This week I was asked if I knew whether the Weight Watchers yogurt was still available.  I plugged it into the product locator and "found" WW Strawberry Yogurt at a local supermarket.  

And, Finally...

"A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables."
Gertrude Stein