I am looking for ways to encorperate more vegetables into my diet. I just recently recommitted myself and had a great week food wise. Looking back I noticed a serious lack of veggies.

Any ideas? I am thinking of adding a low sodium V8 into my daily diet.

I should mention I am pretty full usually and can't see adding more volume to my diet. A lot of veggies simply don't get along with my band. I love love broccoli but sadly can no longer eat it.

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I make green veg soup and have that every day for my lunch.. borccoli, cauliflour,frozen peas, zucchini, onion and some celery and veg stock cube, I cook till tender, leaving the florets and frozen peas to the last 5 mins of cooking then stick blender .. is filling and really good for u..

I'm on my pre-op diet and tried something new last night. I really like onions cooked in with things as well as onion rings and awesome blossom type onions. Last night I cut an onion similar to how an awesome blossom would be cut, sprayed some foil with non stick spray and tented it around the onion. I left it in the oven for 45 min at 350 and it was great! It probably does not need to be in the oven that long but it was my first time and that is just what I tried this time.

Well, to my mind the Protein focus of a bandsters diet does compete with the veggies a little bit - for me personally, especially having had bowel cancer, I am NEVER going to eat all my meat to the exclusion of vegetables. I always mix my protein and my vegies on my fork.

If i make a smoothie - usually with an Optifast base, I always add frozen spinach. Makes it green or a weird colour if you have red fruits like berries, but its pretty much tasteless and adds a good whack of nutrition - I have a Vitamix, so it gets blended up to no texture at all.

I eat lots and lots and lots of soup, soup that I make myself with fresh vegetables. Soup would be my lunch four or five days of the week and probably for dinner once or twice too. I often eat things like baked Beans on toast for lunch. I always add things like kidney beans, chick peas and/or loads of finely grated veggies to a bolognaise sauce, when we eat Pasta, I usually skip the spaghettie and have mine on stirfried zucchini ribbons.

I make so much effort with veggies because I just really dont like fruit much.

Trouble is, my diet is a more carb focussed, higher fibre diet, which I need with my particular health issues. Red meat is linked to bowel cancer and things like ham and salami are off my diet forever. So I probably get less protein than a lot of bandsters. However, I lost 130% of my excess weight fairly easily, have kept it off for years and dont have any problems related to lack of protein.

go to the library and look for a book called " Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld., ( wife of commediene Jerry Seinfeld ) She writes about the frustration of getting healthy foods into her 3 young kids. She started purreeing (sp?) everthing and slipping it into her familys meals. solved alot of the veggie problems. She recently came out with another book called "Double Delicious ." hope this helps ! ( I've seen her first book at 2nd hand stores too).

I drink v8. Usually 4oz in the morning. Can't handle breakfast early so it is a win win

Adding spinach to a Protein Shake is wonderful. Here's one I made a while back

http://happilyafterlapband.blogspot.com/2012/01/blueberry-spinach-protein-shake.html

Sauteed mushrooms go down easy, here's my recipe:

http://happilyafterlapband.blogspot.com/2012/02/sauteed-mushrooms-my-lighter-version.html

I recently made meatloaves in a muffin tin and added Shredded zuchinni. The meatloaves were wonderful:

http://happilyafterlapband.blogspot.com/2012/03/muffin-tin-meatloaves.html

Mashing up cauliflower with some ranch seasoning is delicious.

Have you tried Broccolini? I had some the other night and it went down great.Just steam a little extra and chew it a ton.

Split Pea and Ham is fab and has lots of Protein. I make my mother in law's recipe and it's very simple and delicious, let me know if you'd like me to share it! I'll be glad to send it to you.

raw baby spinach is another thing my husband and I eat a lot of because we can have quite a bit of it and still get all of our protein in.

I keep seeing everyone talk about roasted brussel sprouts. I've never had one but it seems like they are all the rage. You could also make a zuchinni lasagna (slice the zuchinni thin and use it as noodles)

Spagetti squash also goes down really easy and you can pair that with Ground Turkey and tomato sauce so you get your protein in that as well.

I'm not a breakfast eater, so I will often make smoothies for breakfast. In my green smoothie, I add 2 whole cups of packed fresh spinach. I don't even taste the spinach because the fruit hides the flavor.

It took me a long time to realize that I was focusing too much on Protein and not nearly enough on fruits and veggies. Colon cancer runs in my family and I had a pre-cancerous polyp removed a while back. I now focus more on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. I still eat meat, but rarely ever eat red meat anymore. I also get protein from Greek yogurt and Beans.

I eat edamame all the time, it's one of my favorite vegetables. if you don't think you can eat the veggies, try smoothies. It's a great way to get the nutrients in without having to struggle to get them down.

Thank you everyone for the replies. Lots of great ideas!! I look forward to trying some of them.

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I know this is an older post, but I thought I would give it a try. For those of you doing green smoothies, do you have any issues with too much air in them? I need to incorporate more veggies and fruits and I was thinking of going the vitamix green smoothie route. It would be easy for a morning breakfast and since I keep reading that people have a tight band in the morning, this would be good to get used to, to avoid skipping breakfast.

I tecently discoverd(!) baby bok choy. Very delicious sauteed in a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper. Cut into small pieces and well-chewed it was delicious !

Also have been using green giant cauliflower in cheese sauce, cooked very well and the green giant carrots in a sweet sauce( forget the real name!) Also cooked very well and chewed well.

I always stirfry my vegetables and add a touch of low salt soy sauce and oyster sauce and a bit of garlic. I cook them till they are a bit softer as I got stuck on of all things broccoli. You can pretty much do this with all vegetables, my kids and husband like this too. Beats bland steamed vegetables.

I bought a Vitamix for just that reason. I add spinach and sprouts to my Protein Shake. I made Soup broth with a sweet potato, 2 carrots, a can of cannellinis, and some chic broth. I've made yummy lowfat spinach pesto. Anyway- I have had trouble getting enough veggies in too.

-Cordelia, banded 1/08