This week is National Nutrition Week and Alliance Rehabilitation are celebrating by supporting this year’s initiative ‘Try for 5’, helping Australians increase their vegetable intake.

Did you know less than 7.5% of Australians eat adequate vegetables. The Australian Guidelines have been created based on scientific evidence to improve overall health and reduce the risk of disease, recommends on average women should consume 5 servings of vegetables and men 6. But what is a serving? A good rule of thumb is the size of your closed fist.

Now are you currently meeting your daily vegetable requirements? If you’re one of the many Australians who are not, no need to worry, you can make small gradual changes to your diet to help reach your goal and improve your overall health. We have put together a set of daily challenges to try this week to help you start making these changes.

Challenge Yourself This Week

Challenge #1

When cooking, try to add double the quantity of veggies to meat ratio.

This is a great and simple way to quantify your daily vegetable intake.

Challenge #2

Try to break up your vegetable intake throughout the day, rather than all in one meal.

This will make it easier to reach your daily target.

Challenge #3

Add some vegetarian meals to your meal planning.

This is a great way to increase vegetable intake and overall dietary variety.

Challenge #4

Next time when making family favourites, try adding 1-2 extra vegetables to increase the nutrient profile of meals you already know are a hit at home.

Challenge #5

Try adding some vegetables at breakfast. Vegetables can often be overlooked in the mornings, however, are a great addition to any cooked breakfast, omelette, and make great toast toppings.

Challenge #6

Add a side salad if a meal is low in vegetables.

This will help increase your veggie intake and help you feel full and satisfied from the meal.

Challenge #7

Some additional tips to help increase your vegetable intake moving forward

  • Eat the rainbow. Vegetables come in many different forms and colours. Often its colour is a great indicator of the essential nutrients it contains. Therefor consuming a diet with a wide variety of colours helps ensure you are getting in all those important nutrients.
  • Keep some frozen vegetables in your freezer. Frozen vegetables are just as nutritious as fresh. And bonus, they last a very long time and can be stored in the freezer and ready to use with the drop of a hat.

Easy Risotto (Veggie packed)

Here’s a quick free recipe from Food Bank for you to try. This is a great example of how you can add more vege’s into your everyday meals.

Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp extra virgin olive
  • 1 ¼ cup Arborio Rice
  • 3 tsp reduced salt vegetable stock powder
  • 3 cups boiling water
  • ½ pumpkin, peeled, and chopped into 2cm cubes
  • 2 cups baby spinach leaves
  • 200g mushrooms, finely sliced
  • 2 carrots, slices into 1 cm lengths
  • 1 cup peas
  • 1 packet low fat sun dried tomatoes
  • 100g parmesan cheese

Method

  1. Wash Hands and ensure meal preparation area is clean, then wash vegetables
  2. Turn on electric fry pan, adding olive oil once hot
  3. Fry off onion, garlic and chicken until chicken is browned
  4. Add rice, stock powder and 1.5 cups boiling water and stir, bring to boil and leave for 5 minutes.
  5. Add vegetables (pumpkin cubes, mushroom, peas, baby spinach and carrot).
  6. Leave to sit until cooked, then add parmesan cheese to serve.
Further Dietetic Support