Your Body Needs Food – The Right Food

Salad days (Photo credit: elisabet.s)

As I keep saying, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is the key to a healthy life and variety is the spice of life.  Adding extras to your everyday meals is a start.  Try adding seeds or fresh fruit to your cereals or grating a carrot in your salad as just two examples.

The other way to add variety and extra nutrition is to grow your own greens.  We can all do it, even if you don’t have any garden.  I only have a small garden and space is at a premium.  There are also only the two of us and trying to grow lots of vegetables and salad plants is just not practical or economical.  When they do grow they will all come ready at the same time and a lot is then wasted.  Well not completely wasted as they finish up in the compost.  But growing vegetables and salad can be done easily and give you a wide variety extra nutrition to your diet.

First buy some seeds.  Either mixed salad leaves or chinese leaves mix.  Alternatively buy your own selection – lettuce, spinach, pak choi, swiss chard, chinese cabbage, beet, etc.  Mix them all together to make your own salad/vegetable mix.  One thing to watch though is to make sure you only mix seeds that have a similar growing cycle so that they are all growing at the same time.

Now you have your seeds, make a space for your ‘mini’ garden.  I use about a square metre for one batch but any smaller size will do.  I have even used 2 or 3 seed trays.  Troughs, large tubs, etc are also a possibility.  Sow your seeds as per the instructions and once they are growing and with the second leaves showing you can start using them on salads by pulling a few plants to thin them out while the rest continue to grow.  As they get bigger just keeping pulling a hand full of leaves to use with your meals.

Obviously these mine vegetables won’t make up a meal but that is not the intention.  The intention is to add variety and other nutrients to your meal.  Still buy a lettuce from the shop, make your salad then add your leaf mixture to the chopped lettuce.

If that is too much bother or too much work when you have a busy schedule, just buy a bag of salad leaves from the supermarket and add to your bought lettuce!!    It is more rewarding doing it yourself but it is still adding variety to your diet.  Another tip grate a carrot on your salad or even on your vegetables with a cooked dinner.  Use your imagination and you will be amazed how easy it is to make your normal meals more nutritious and at the same time tastier with the added flavours.