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We’re excited to invite you to join us in eating 100 veggies in one month! You may count your steps or cups of water but have you ever counted your of intake vegetables?? Join me this March by tracking your intake of veggies with our fun and free veggie tracker, trying new plant-rich meals and supporting your best health!! Read more below and download your free veggie tracker! Let me know if you’re IN for the challenge on Instagram by tagging @HealthyGroceryGirl and #HGG100Veggies I can’t wait to see and go on this plant powered journey together!
Every time you add a vegetable to your meal or snack, that counts as ONE on the veggie tracker. If you make a smoothie and add a handful of spinach that’s ONE veggie, if you make a soup and it contains carrots, celery, potato and kale that’s FOUR veggies and so fourth! Simply count how many veggies are in your meal or snack and track your progress with our free tracker by checking a circle of filling in a circle for every veggie you eat. It’s a FUN way to encourage more veggie consumption and achieve an amazing, healthy goal!
According to the USDA, the current recommendations for vegetable servings is 2.5 cups per day. This amount is broken down into further subcategories for weekly amounts. This weekly total looks like:
Dark Green Vegetables: 1.5 cups / week
Red and Orange Vegetables: 5.5 cups / week
Starchy Vegetables: 5 cups / week
Other Vegetables: 4 cups / week
Beans, Peas and Lentils (The USDA includes these as Veggie Servings): 1.5 cups / week
Consuming 2.5 cups per day of vegetables is approximately 77-78 cups per month (for a 31 day month). This was our starting point / inspiration for bumping it up to 100 veggies! However, instead of keeping track of the exact serving sizes, we’re keeping making it easier to track by simply aiming to eat 100 vegetables in a month. By adding more veggies to our meals and snacks every day, we’ll likely reach 78 cups of veggies along the way too!
According to the CDC, only 1 in 10 adults are eating enough vegetables in a day, so most of us could benefits from each more vegetables!
While we love all plant-based foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, nuts, seeds and legumes… it’s definitely great to keep including those into your diet! However, since vegetables seem to be the food that most people find it difficult consuming enough of, we wanted to to focus our mission this month of eating MORE vegetables!
Did you know that eating a variety of veggies is also important for gut health?
Every vegetable contains a specific type of prebiotic fiber that feeds your healthy gut bacteria! For example, the prebiotic fiber found in broccoli feeds different microbes than the prebiotic fiber found in dark leafy greens. Since we want all of our healthy gut bacteria to be fed, aiming to consume a diversity of plants throughout the week is a great place to start!
Fiber is not only important for maintaining a healthy gut microbiome, but also may improve digestion, lower inflammation and support your immunity. Did you know that approximately 70% of your immune system resides in the lining outside of your gut? Fiber can also help you feel more sustained after meals and helps slow the absorption of blood glucose. This is important for avoiding those sugary spikes and crashes.
Besides gut health, veggies provide the body with some other incredible health benefits! One of the things we love to highlight is phytochemicals! Phytochemicals are plant compounds that may protect your cells from damage. Free radicals are the unstable atoms that may cause this damage. Phytochemicals can act like antioxidants by neutralizing free radicals, which takes away their ability to damage your cells. Consuming a diet rich in phytochemicals is one way to help reduce the risk of certain diseases.