It can be challenging enough to get in your recommended five fruits and vegetables each day. Now, you’re hearing about superfoods, and you’re supposed to fit them in, too?
For many time-pressed people today, it’s easier to grab fast, convenient food, which is usually not healthy. Fortunately, eating meals packed with fruits, veggies, and superfoods can also be quick and relatively simple. It just takes small shifts in perspective, planning, and preparation.
What’s a Superfood and Why Should You Care?
Before you figure out how to incorporate superfoods into your diet, you’ll likely want to understand the what and the why. Superfoods are fruit, vegetable, and even fish or dairy items that are especially rich in essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. They often also include fiber and healthy fats that are good for your brain and heart. The bottom line: Superfoods can do a lot for your body.
Having a superfood-heavy diet can lessen your chances of developing heart disease, cancer, stroke, and other illnesses. Foods like avocados, berries, beets, dark leafy greens, chia seeds, garlic, ginger, salmon, and Greek yogurt are great examples.
Vitamins in these foods, such as A, B, D, and K, and minerals like potassium, iron, and magnesium help keep you healthier, stronger, and even happier. With so much variety, you’ve got plenty of options for incorporating superfoods into your daily routine.
Source: eatthis.com
1. Have a Smoothie or Yogurt Bowl for Breakfast
For many people, breakfast is a critical start to the day. It quite literally breaks your overnight fast. Without breakfast, your energy may wane by mid-morning, leaving you feeling irritable and even shaky.
If you’re a breakfast person, it’s much better to have a meal packed with nutrients than to grab a donut or toaster pastry. You’ll be fueling your body in healthy ways, and all you have to do is throw everything in a blender or bowl and go!
One option for a superfood breakfast is to make a smoothie or a yogurt bowl. For either meal, you can start with a base of Greek yogurt; this ingredient alone has calcium, protein, and probiotics for a healthy gut.
Then throw in some chia seeds, which are rich in magnesium, iron, zinc, and antioxidants. As a boost to your morning meal, consider incorporating a super greens powder, which can kill a lot of superfood birds with one stone. By the end of breakfast, you’ll have built a foundation for a healthy day.
2. Make a Scramble
Whipping up a quick and easy scramble is a delicious pathway to consuming more superfoods. Contrary to popular belief, eggs don’t just have to be for breakfast. Scrambled eggs, omelets, and frittatas taste awesome at all hours of the day.
And because eggs are packed with protein and choline, a nutrient critical for brain health, they make a brilliant base for a meal. You’ll also get vitamin D, B vitamins, iron, and omega 3 fatty acids in eggs, making them an indisputable superfood!
You can add so many other tasty superfoods to a quick egg scramble. A spinach, garlic, and mushroom scramble can make an amazingly nutritious dinner. Antioxidant-rich mushrooms have gotten much more attention recently as the superfood of the future.
You could also make a scramble with salmon and kale or spinach, onions, and avocado. There are so many variations to explore, and you can cook your eggs in heart and skin-healthy olive oil as a bonus!
Source: epicurious.com
3. Eat a Salad Every Day
You know what else goes great with olive oil? Salad! You can pack a salad with superfoods, and it doesn’t have to be lunch; it can be dinner. You can even make a breakfast salad and top it with two fried or hard-boiled eggs.
Salads can be versatile, delicious, and super healthy as long as you’re working with the right ingredients. Eschew the iceberg lettuce and start with dark, leafy greens like arugula, kale, beet greens, or a mixture, and build from there.
Freshly grated beets on top of a salad can add sweetness, and they’re good for your blood pressure. Avocado and salmon will give you rich flavor and supply healthy fats. Walnuts, sunflower seeds, or pumpkin seeds can provide crunch along with vitamins B and E and magnesium and zinc.
To top it off, make a dressing with olive oil or Greek yogurt, ginger, garlic, and some herbs like dill or cilantro. Once you get started experimenting, you’ll discover just how many wonderful and different combinations you can create with superfood salads.
4. Rethink Dinner
After a long workday, dinner can be a pain to figure out every single night, week after week, for years on end. It’s easy to become bored, overwhelmed, or both by repetitive meal planning. Maybe it’s time to mix things up.
Have breakfast for dinner in the form of an egg scramble, or make a superfood salad instead of the usual meat and potatoes. And if you do want to stick to a traditional dinner, consider meal prepping ahead of time.
Instead of buying pasta sauce in a jar, you’re better off making a large batch of marinara with tons of garlic, onions, and basil. Cook up a big pot of soup on a Sunday, loading it with vegetables, herbs, spices, onions, and garlic.
You can add lentils to a double batch of your beef stew or white beans to your chicken chili. Then, divide the large batch into smaller portions and freeze them. That way, you can pull out and reheat a superfood meal on a busy weeknight.
Source: littlehouseliving.com
Feeling Super With Superfoods
You have a wealth of options to get more superfoods into your daily meals, and it can be a fun challenge to take on. Once you’re accustomed to keeping your kitchen stocked with the right ingredients, you’ll find yourself eager to add them to your diet.
Start small, trying one new tactic, and move on from there. Before you know it, you’ll be telling all your friends about your new healthy lifestyle. And they’ll be begging you for your recipes.
