10 Ways To Drink Your Vegetables
Eating an excessive amount of vegetables just to get your daily dose can be annoying. Slaving over a stove just to eat broccoli and green beans can drive anyone to drink — which got us thinking. Can't you just drink your vegetables? Not in cocktails (although there's an idea) but in health and power drinks that provide you with daily doses of vitamins, fruits, and vegetables.
Click here to see 10 Ways to Drink Your Vegetables (Slideshow)
[pullquote:left] There are a plethora of drinks on the market right now that provide consumers with their daily doses of vegetables. Vegetables are part of a balanced diet, but any parent knows it's nearly impossible to get children to eat the right amounts. Kids steer away from things that cartoons tell them are gross — broccoli, spinach, and cauliflower. And who wants to be the weirdo in class who has green beans in their lunch? But now you can toss a Naked smoothie into your kids' lunch boxes and they're set for the day in terms of their vegetables. And who's to say picky eating only applies to children? There are certainly a fair amount adults out there who would rather avoid kale, parsnips, and Brussels sprouts.
Not surprisingly, the amount of vegetables an individual needs on a daily basis is dependent upon their age, sex, and level of physical activity. Women between 19 and 30 years of age typically need 2 ½ cups of vegetables each day, while men in the same age bracket need 3 cups. This may not seem like a lot, but in reality you need to eat more vegetables than you think to fulfill these needs. According to the United Stated Department of Agriculture, "1 cup of raw or cooked vegetables or vegetable juice, or 2 cups of raw leafy greens can be considered as 1 cup from the Vegetable Group."
Luckily, there are plenty of drinks out there that you can consume throughout the day that will help to boost vegetable intake. And it's a good idea, because having a diet that's high in vegetables can help reduce the risk of heart disease, protect against certain kinds of cancers, lower your blood pressure, reduce the risk of kidney stones, and help decrease bone loss.
Common brands like Odwalla, Naked, V8, and BluePrint Juice have come out with flavors that are packed with your daily doses of vegetables. They require no preparation (with the exception of opening the bottle) and come bursting with vegetable goodness. BluePrint's kale juice has 6 pounds of produce in the bottle, for example — that's an exceptional amount of vegetables that would typically require far more effort to prepare at home than merely buying a bottle at your local Whole Foods.
Beyond these simple bottled solutions, we also came up with a few juicing recipes that you can create at home. These recipes are for low-calorie, high-protein drinks that are seriously good for you. When you start adding more vegetables to your diet, you'll be sure to start feeling healthier by the minute. So stop rolling your eyes when you walk through the produce section of the grocery store — there are so many ways out there to get your daily dose of vegetables and we've rounded up eight no-fail solutions!
Click here to see Lemon Green Juice Recipe
Click here to see Upbeet Juice Recipe
Click here to see Beet Zinger Juice Recipe
Click here to see Apple, Carrot, and Ginger Juice Recipe
