Wash-and-Chop: The answer to getting yourself to eat more vegetables

Getting yourself to eat more vegetables like you know you should can be a battle. There are lots of common hurdles, including the time and effort to prepare vegetables for meals, or just not “liking” vegetables. The answer to “not liking” vegetables is to buy better quality (fresh, local, in season) and learn to cook! The answer to the time stumbling block is…

Wash-and-Chop

A streamlined method for washing and prepping your vegetables for the week ahead of time. This is a simple concept: right after you do your weekly grocery shopping (and plan out your meals for the week – planning is big key to success), you gather up all your veggies in a colander, wash them, cut/chop, and put back into the fridge in tupperware (or if you are like me, GlassLock reusable containers).

I know from my own experience comparing weeks when I successfully wash-and-chop versus failing to do so that I easily double my intake of vegetables by doing this.

Having the veggies ready to go makes it super easy to throw them into your omelette or salad or stir fry.

Have leftover shopped onions and broccoli (or whatever) at the end of the week? Put them in a frittata. (this is a baked egg dish that you can put any kind of meat or vegetable you like – it is the answer for leftovers!)

But what about pre-cut veggies?

Pre-cut is convenient, and convenient comes at a higher price. Also, there is a price in terms of compromised freshness. In my limited experience with pre-cut fresh veggies, I also seem to be slightly more likely to get food poisoning from them (and that is after washing and cooking!). That’s just my take on it, but I suggest washing and cutting your own vegetables.

actually, this is enough vegetables for just 2 meals for me – a week’s worth would be a lot more