Five Easy Ways to Add Veggies Into Your Gluten Free/Dairy Free Diet

1. Eat Your Veggies First

You may use this on your kids and it's a great trick for adults too. Vegetables are filling and often take a while to chew, so get them into your body first before you're tired of eating or too full!

2. Add Spinach to a Yummy Smoothie

I do this almost daily because it's the easiest way to get leafy greens and oranges into my toddler and enough protein into me.

She LOVES them!!! She gets so excited once I turn on my blender. If you're too busy some days to turn on the blender and clean up, you can freeze smoothies in ice cube trays and then transfer them into freezer bags to get a stockpile of it ready for you to grab before leaving the house. It's also great to have it frozen for a road trip so it stays good for longer.

Here's my favorite recipe:

1/2 cup raw, unsalted almonds
1 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup strawberries
1 banana
1 orange
1 scoop of pea protein (vegan, gluten free)
1/2 cup of frozen spinach



3. Make Your Salad Taste Good

If I try to "watch the salad dressing" the way diet experts recommend, I just don't eat salad! The only way around not using dressing for me is to add raisons, chopped apples, peas, sunflower seeds, and other toppings in with the salad mix. And, yes, I have lost a lot of weight that way. I lost 30 pounds mostly by eating A LOT of salads starting before and after I became gluten free.


4. Replace Meat with Beans

Since I used to vegan before realizing I couldn't eat gluten, I never considered beans to be vegetables, but they are. If you are used to meat and potatoes three meals a day like many Americans, try one vegetarian day a week at first and replace the meat with tasty bean dishes, such as fried tofu, pinto bean enchiladas, a hummus, avocado, and egg sandwich, or vegan lasagna with tofu rather than meat. If you eat dairy, try not to replace meat with cheese since that can be very fattening.

5. Curb Your Sweet Tooth

If you give up sugar for a week, veggies WILL taste better. Also, if you ever feel like any food that isn't sweet bores you, giving up sugar, at least temporarily, is a MUST!