5 easy ways to incorporate more greens into your diet

We’re all hearing more and more about the importance of fruit and vegetables, especially greens. With our increasingly busy lifestyles and abundance of convenience foods, it’s easy to forget your 5 a day. To help you out we’ve put together some easy tips and tricks to bolster your daily greens intake.

1. Include greens for breakfast
   
   A great way to increase your intake of green vegetables is to incorporate them into your breakfast which is recognised as one of the most important meals of the day. Why not begin your day with a vegetable omelet, zucchini pancake or vegetable scrambled eggs. Zucchini contains a moderate source of folate which is important for cell division and DNA synthesis, a good source of potassium which has a positive effect on reducing blood pressure and also moderate levels of B vitamins.
   
   
2. Incorporate vegetables into your snack
   
   Snack on celery, cucumber and zucchini sticks with hummus or kale chips. Kale is considered a superfood because of its rich nutritional content of vitamins and minerals. It contains all 9 essential amino acids needed to form the proteins within the human body including histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, valine – plus 9 other non-essential ones for a total of 18. In addition, it is also high in vitamin A, essential fatty acids, magnesium and calcium.
   
   
3. Begin your dinner with an entre salad
   
   If you begin dinner with a small entre salad, you are hugely increasing your green vegetable intake whilst improving portion control for carbohydrates and protein. You can include spinach, kale, cucumber, green beans and zucchini in your salad. Top it all off with our delicious Alkalising Greens Basil Vinaigrette (recipe below).
   
   
4. Make half of your plate vegetables
   
   Just like starting your dinner off with an entre salad, making half of your plate vegetables is another great way to increase your vegetable intake and nourish your body with nutrient-rich sources of vitamins and minerals.
   
   
5. Sip on a green smoothie throughout the day
   
   Sipping on a green smoothie throughout the day adds more serves of green vegetables to your diet whilst satisfying hunger pains. Cucumber in particular is rich in antioxidants, vitamin C, beta-carotene, manganese and contains high levels of vitamins A, B, C, D and E. Cucumber also brings a wonderfully refreshing to the table, so why not add it to your next green smoothie!

If you're still struggling to bump up your daily intake of greens, you can always supplement some of your greens intake with our boosting powders, including Alkalising Greens, Spirulina, Wheat Grass, Barley Grass and Kale Powder!

Alkalising Greens Basil Vinaigrette

• Gluten Free
• Wheat Free
• Sugar Free
• Dairy Free
• Vegan
  
  

Ingredients

1 small bunch fresh basil leaves
4 tbsp crushed roasted garlic
4 tsp balsamic vinegar
750ml extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsb Morlife Alkalising Greens Lemon Lime
Celtic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

1. In a blender, combine the basil, garlic and vinegar.
2. Slowly blend in the oil and Alkalising Greens.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Photo by FOODISM360 via Unsplash