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You know, you need more leafy greens in your life because you know that they're just going to make you feel better. And right now you're ready to move beyond a token piece of lettuce on your hamburger or a salad. You're ready to make a change, but you just don't know where to start.
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Well today, we're gonna share with you 10 simple and delicious ways to get more leafy greens into your life. You're listening to the smarter Healthy Living podcast where we firmly believe that getting healthy should never feel like torture. We're your host, Jared and Anita Roussel were college sweethearts, and health professionals who help you redefine what getting healthy looks like using a whole food plant based lifestyle. It's time to hear from the experts and learn the best tips and tricks that helped others get beyond the overwhelm, to create a vibrant life they love. If you're sick and tired of being sick, and tired, you're in the right place. So pull up a virtual chair, grab your matcha latte, and let's get started.
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Growing up, I don't remember eating a lot of greens.
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You my mother made a lot of home cooked meals, we ate a lot of rice had a lot of vegetables, beans, potatoes, corn, carrots, all those types of things. And then we did have a fair amount of meat as well. But I don't really remember eating a lot of greens
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has mainly the the main thing that we would have is salad. So we had quite a few salads, we'd have the some of the other vegetables to just the standard ones like we'd have, like you said green beans, potatoes, corn, things like that. And I know they make storefronts from time to time, but I don't remember getting a lot of greens except for salads.
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That's just what I think what I would normally think back then if I thought of greens,
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and I remember having some negative association with greens, because I don't know if you had this at your school. But in my elementary school, there was this, this rumor that when they serve spinach, it was actually grass because it always seemed. Now, it always seemed like they served the it was cooked spinach too. I thought it was right after they mowed the playground because we had about a two acre playground at that school. So yes, nobody we didn't even want to touch finish. So we didn't even try it.
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Yeah, it was probably can spinach, I bet.
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And I would say fun. Now I would get curious from time to time and can taste it. But I never really did eat many greens when I was younger.
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So what were you curious about? Were you curious whether or not it was actually grass?
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Well, that or just what it just would have tasted like I would take just a little pinch and eat it. And I didn't really care for it all that much. But now I absolutely love spinach and every form even cook. But that took a very long time. I can't tell you if that was because of the rumors, or whenever I was in elementary school.
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But yeah, we just didn't get that many. And I know that we aren't the only ones. I mean, even when we take clients and we help them look at what they're eating. Now. One of the major things that's missing is leafy greens. So how do you get those in there in a way that's simple and that you actually enjoy?
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Well, first we're going to talk about the health benefits. Why would you want to get them in the first place? I mean, I actually like the way they taste Now I can honestly say that I enjoy my leafy greens and these wife's that we're going to share with you today are some of our very favorites because they are quick and they do taste really good. But I think you know your taste perceptions change as you go along in this journey. It really you taste things in blue that you never tasted before.
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And one of the things that I've just grown to love are the leafy greens.
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Well, the health benefits of the leafy greens are numerous but some of the common ones are going to be bone health. They help boost your immune system. They help protect your eyes. Also, they help fight against cancer. There's a component called sulforaphane.
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Sulforaphane,
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sulforaphane,
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does that come from sulfur basically does not but it has
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in it but it does come from the cruciferous vegetables or it has sulfur in it. Yes, it's a bit of a tongue twister.
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Try to say that 10 times sulforaphane. But anyway, those are the health some of the health benefits. There are numerous health benefits like Jared said, and too many really to name right now. You can Google that if you need to know all the different health benefits but right now we want to make it practical for you and we want to tell you the different kinds of greens you want to get into your life. Some of those are kale, collard greens, any kind of lettuce, red leaf green leaf, romaine lettuces, butter lettuces. How about turnip greens Did you know beets many times she kept by beets with fresh greens on the top, chop those puppies off and cook them put them in don't waste them. No put them in a Starfire something they're amazing for you but you don't want to let those sit too long because they will will go bad on your beats within a day or two.
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And also if you get those and they're really green and good then you know you're getting fresh beats which is a great telltale On. So get those beet greens, turnip greens. What about swiss chard, mustard greens, cabbage, tons of different kinds of cabbage you can get. And don't forget this small leafy greens we always think about the big leaves. Why don't we think about things like cilantro or parsley, mint, spearmint? What about fenugreek time oregano, I mean, those are just a few of the small leafy greens. You want to include those because I have a lot of the same health benefits. Yeah, you have to eat a lot more of them, but they're also going to make your food taste great. And that's what we're going for here. Well, one of the main ways that you can get grains that people don't often think about is making savory oats. You know, a lot of people in playing bass they like eating oatmeal. We enjoy hours, Jarrod likes is with berries and all kinds of things on it. But we think about
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doing a savory Yeah, with the cacao powder and blueberries and other berries like raspberries. So it's usually a little bit sweeter. I haven't branched out quite as much into the savory
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but I have a friend who loves savory oatmeal and she puts turmeric and a little bit of salt, I think and then she puts pepper and a lot of times stir fried veggie, you can either pick the leafy greens and just stir fry those a little bit just until they wilt, and then stir those into your grains. Or you can just eat them on the side with your savory I
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guess you could almost think of it like a morning grain bowl. Yeah, just made with oatmeal instead of rice or one of the other grains.
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I totally like that.
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Yeah. That sounds good. Okay, my mind's spinning. Now I'm thinking of all these really great things I could do. And I could go off on a tangent. So I want that anyway, because we could be here for for a while if that happened. And but we have the savory outs. Now what's another thing we could do with the greens shared?
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Well tip number two, you can simply just add more greens to dishes or whatever meal that you already have the greens in.
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So if you're making some type of sandwich, just add more to that.
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If you're putting it in a soup, add more to that soup.
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What about wraps we like wraps it rice paper wraps. We like that is do that we often stuff those with greens and a lot of
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them full of greens.
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Yeah, and so that's a great way to get a lot of extra greens into like crunch
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too.
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But don't forget your sauces. I know that's off topic, but you got to have the flavors in that rice wrap. It's really really good.
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Next but But speaking of raps though, that you have actually used the green itself as the rap.
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I can't believe I was gonna leave that out. That is a huge
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tool. Many times she'll make sandwiches instead of using bread. She just gets a big leaf like a big piece of Iceberg lettuce and uses that as the bread if you will,
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that are collard greens, we make collard wraps where you just take the color green and just wrap your wonderful veggies and sauces inside that. You can even add beans and grains to that and it makes a wonderful rap. It's really really tasty.
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And there was something else I was gonna share there and I just can't think of what it was it had to do with the rap.
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You'll think of it.
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Alright, let's go to tip number three. Tip number three.
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Okay, tip number three.
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Okay, this one. I don't know why I didn't do this before. But listen, if you do this, you're going to really, really be glad you did when you make beans, and one of our favorite ways is to make them in the instant pot.
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It's quick. It's delicious. It's wonderful. We have an episode on that. Do not miss that episode, episode number. What was it Jarrod 23. Yeah, it's they're so delicious. But anyway, when you're making your beans, you know, for the longest time, I thought I was doing so great because I would actually make my beans. And that tastes so much better just with the liquid alone liquid and beans in your instant pot and your pressure cooker and your crock pot on the stove. You can make beans so many different ways. But I would make them in the instant pot and I would think I'm not just going to put water. I'll put some garlic and chopped onions in there. And it was delicious. And then one day it hit me. Why do I never add more to my beans? Why does it just have to be beans with onion? Why can't I add a bunch of vegetables right? So I cram them full of grains and chop them really fun so you don't get these big, big mouthful of grains. You just get grains mixed in and cooked down in with your beans. It's a wonderful way to add a lot of grains into your life that really bumps up the flavor of something else you're cooking.
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What about number four?
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Number four, we'll add them we like to do a tofu scramble in the morning. We do it some and we add the greens to that as well.
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What are your favorite greens in the tofu scramble. I really like kale. Spinach is easy
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spinach. I like them. I might gravitate a little more towards spinach. Yeah, it
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really just it wills down so nicely in us in a tofu scramble in a matter of about a minute. We like those a lot. And then number five, simple stir fry, stir
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fry, we love stir fry.
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How about your favorite greens for stir fry.
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I like bok choy, we haven't done as much because it really depends on if it's in season or not. But I like the flavor that it gives inside the stir fry
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bok choy is great because it's used in a lot of Asian restaurants. But it's not something many people usually have in their refrigerator and I grab it every time I see it.
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When it doesn't look Brown, you want it to look nice and white at the bottom really clean. I mean, I have a little bit of brown on it. But you can tell when it's starting to get spa spots more and more and getting old and the leaves are kind of wilting, because a lot of people don't buy it more people should and then we'd have probably fresh bok choy all the time on the shelves. But if you see one that's really nice and crisp, get yourself some bok choy, chop that up and get it into your star fries. It is tasty good. It gets that crunch kind of like water. chestnut really
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does a great comparison.
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Actually.
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Yeah, we love bok choy, next, smoothies or smoothie bowls, you can pack a boatload of greens and just maybe get those in there. And you won't believe how that'll change your life.
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Don't be afraid to put a bunch of them in there, you'll pack it full, and then you just punch it down, and then add some more. Boom, punch it and then just get it full. And a lot of health benefits a lot of fiber.
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Well, once you get some of the fruits and things you really don't taste it a lot. And if you're going to start with that, making smoothie bowls or smoothies and you're not used to that, just start with a little less greens or start with the greens that are more mild like a spinach. Next grain bowls. One of our favorite things,
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we love grain bowls, we've I think we may actually have a little bit of an addiction to them. But we do variety. We do a lot of variety with this. So we're not always doing the exact same ingredients. Yeah, PVC is a versatile dish.
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It's easy to get stuck on just rice and a grain bowl.
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But we throw a lot of greens in that to
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throw those greens in there. chop them up fine. If you don't like big chunks of grains, you won't even know they're in there. It's amazing. And grain bowl, what about piling a ton of them into your pasta sauces.
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This is one place I do cut chop them quite fine and put them in there and they just wilt down.
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It's almost like you don't know they're in there. But it gives it it gives your pasta sauce more bulk and substance. And they're really delicious and pasta sauces.
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I think with those looking at stuff like the spinach, which we don't want people to eat too many of them.
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If you have kidney stones, there is some possibility that eating a ton of Spanish may worsen that. But always you want variety. But I think things like spinach is and the other softer leaves tend to do better because we add them after we cook so that the heat in the sauce helps to kind of wilt the leaf of the spinach or whatever lettuce we're using
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the sometimes I do add them while I'm cooking. It just depends on what you're going for if you want to really cook down so you don't notice them in there much at all. Or if you just want them to wilt a little bit you could do either way and pasta sauce. And then think about soups and stews. Why don't we put greens in there? Think about that for a minute. Why if you're making a vegetable soup, would you not think about chopping up some kind of green and getting it in there and a lot of it because especially if you're cooking in in something like an instant pot is pretty much going to disappear into the safe, and they're amazing. And soups, it'll get much softer. We
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many times use kale and cabbage for that.
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Yeah. And then the last thing is think about dressings.
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Homemade dressings are really, really easy to make if you have a really great blender, always refer back to this episode. But I have to say it's probably one of my favorites. Because if I had had the golden nugget of knowing what blender to buy back in the day, that would have rocked my world and change things so much faster for us because you can do anything in a blender. But greens in a blender, when you're making dressings and sauces. Why not add some to it. I mean, it doesn't really matter if your dressing turns out green, it's going on a probably a green salad. And then for sauces, think about if it's something that you don't mind if it's a little bit green or that that color, it can be a great addition to a sauce and
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whenever you're you mentioned before doing the herbs and things so the different parsley, yes, and those herbs going into your sauces that are going to give it flavor Anyway, we'll throw a little more of that in there. Or you can throw in if you just know you need it and you want to be health conscious. And you're essentially you're hiding your veggie in your own in your own food there. So you're playing a trick on yourself. Then take a leaf of lettuce or I'm sorry leaf of kale and throw that in there and you blend it up smooth and You'll just you'll never know.
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Absolutely and a lot of these are great ways to get your children to eat more greens.
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People talk about a hide it in there. I mean really, we're the mindset that we want you to train your children to enjoy and not have to hide them. But if you're just starting out or you have really young children, you can do that to increase the amount of greens so you could do that in any of these ways you could add them to your oats, add them to your things you're already using them in like your sandwiches and wraps. pack a pot of instant pot beans with those or however you're cooking your beans right just pack those greens into the beans. Add events to your tofu scramble to your surprise smoothie, smoothie bowls, grain bowls, pile a ton into your pasta sauces, enjoy them and soups and stews and add them to homemade dressings and sauces. So there you have it friend, the 10 easiest ways to get more leafy greens into your life. I hope this was super helpful, really inspiring. And we cannot wait to see you feel better and have more energy to because when you live life feeling great, there is absolutely no end to the things you can create and do. If you're ready to build your most vibrant life. We want you to know the power on plant society membership is opening soon. So go on over right now and get your name on the VIP list so you don't miss out on the one time offer a forever discount pricing. The link is in the description below. Now Have an awesome day and we will see you next time.
