Why I don’t make friends with salad

Have you ever done these things?

• Dreaded the bitter, floppy lettuce leaf mix they call a side salad
• Put off a health kick because you can’t stand “rabbit food”
• Eaten a container of salad and felt hungry and dissatisfied afterwards

If you have, you’re not alone.

You’re not alone if you would rather eat anything else than a bowl of lettuce. I don’t make friends with salad either.

But I study nutrition, so I must look something like this… right?

(And why is salad so funny?)

The idea is something like this: I’m a student dietitian. Therefore, I eat lots of healthy food. Therefore, I eat lots of salad.

Wrong! If being healthy means eating salad all day then I don’t want to be healthy.

Myth: Eating veggies = Eating salad

I love vegetables – please don’t hear me saying otherwise (I talk about it here), but I think you get the picture, I’m not a salad girl.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I do enjoy salad occasionally, when I’m eating out.. and when it has halloumi.

I enjoy my veggies steamed or as part of my main meal. It might be a stir fry, curry, soup, or a piece of freshly cooked salmon (or meat) with a side of tenderly steamed or crispy and sweet roast veggies. That’s how I love my veggies.

I might put together a quick salad and have it with tuna if I’m desperate.

As I mentioned before, we’re meant to eat 5 serves of veggies per day. A serve is a cup of salad veggies or 1/2 a cup of cooked veggies. Who wants to eat FIVE CUPS of lettuce? (if you want to, hey that’s totally cool too!)

Another Myth: Being healthy means eating food you hate

If you love eating salad all day or love eating cooked veggies or love munching on carrot, celery and other veggie sticks, then go for it!

If you don’t love veggies at all, experiment and try different things!

If you hate veggies, you shouldn’t stop eating veggies.

I’m not saying you should eat Halal Snack Packs or pizza every day because you love them.

Experiment and learn how you like to eat vegetables. Whether it’s making an interesting salad or cooking your veggies differently – more veggies is always better.

If you force yourself to eat a salad you hate because that what ‘being healthy’ is, then you probably won’t stick at it for long.

Ditch the salad if you hate it, there are many other ways to eat your veggies.

Just for inspiration, here are some ways I try and get more veggies:

• Snow peas are my new favourite vegetable to snack on
• I try and add as many vegetables as I can in my stir fry (11 is my highest so far!)
• If you follow me on instagram, you’ll know I’m experimenting with flavours in my #recipesin2016 challenge to keep it interesting
• Having at least one vegetable in my dinner is a helpful ‘rule’ when I don’t feel like cooking at all
• And I always have canned and frozen vegetables in the house to add to dinner

Happy eating x

Cover Photo by Daniel Go