10 Easy Ways to Eat More Veggies

Also: Good-for-you cookies ready in 15 minutes and the lowdown on greens powders.

I wrote this month’s newsletter from a jury duty waiting room. It seemed as good a time as any to work on extracurriculars.

Obviously, I came prepared with snacks. No coconuts (Sex and the City loyalists will get the reference), but some respectable options nonetheless. I don’t like setting myself up for hanger. My husband Matt is often astounded by the number of snacks I’ll pack for a measly two-hour flight. (And yet, it takes about 5 minutes post-takeoff for him to start eyeing my PB&J…)

In my jury duty snack pack: hard-boiled eggs (don’t worry, I stepped into the hallway to eat them; I’m not a monster), Biena crispy chickpeas, an Asian pear, walnuts, and a homemade chocolate chip banana tahini oat cookie. You can find the cookie recipe, if you can even call it one, below. I make a batch of these in my toaster oven whenever I have bananas that have browned beyond the point of acceptability. They take roughly 15 minutes from start to finish and are great paired with plain Greek yogurt at breakfast or a cup of tea in the afternoon.

This month, I’m sharing a simple but genius idea (from someone else) for those days when you can’t figure out what to eat, 10 easy ways to add more vegetables to your diet, and my thoughts on greens powders like AG1.

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Nutrition-Adjacent News, Thoughts + Facts

1. How to get your sh*t together this year, including no-brainer plans for every meal of the day. This Substack post on how to organize your life has more than 5,500 likes for good reason. Scroll down to the Kitchen Organization section and check out the tip to “create a master list of meals” you love. Keep a list like this handy in your Notes app so you’re never at a loss for what to eat during chaotic weeks.

2. Reflux tip: Did you know sleeping on your left side reduces your risk of experiencing reflux compared to sleeping on your right side? The former positions the stomach below the esophagus so that acid is less likely to flow back upwards.

3. Ok, so you know you need to eat more vegetables, but can’t figure out how…Here are 10 easy breezy ways to include more produce:

4. Should dinner be the smallest meal of your day? It’s tough to achieve given how our lives are set up, but there are benefits to front-loading your calories. As this New York Times article explains, eating a greater proportion of your daily calories at night may heighten your risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and chronic inflammation. That’s in part because the body seems better equipped to metabolize carbohydrates earlier in the day, when insulin’s action is naturally stronger. As melatonin levels rise in the evening, insulin production slows down. As such, eating a large portion of carbs at 9 p.m. may affect your health differently (read: worse) than at 9 a.m. Plus, you simply have more time to use carbs for fuel earlier in the day. (BTW, I often see the opposite of this approach in clients, especially among those trying to shed pounds. People will often ‘be good’ (their words, not mine; their idea of ‘good’ is usually my idea of undereating) at breakfast and lunch only to go overboard on calories come the evening. If you fall into this camp, let’s work together.)

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Should I be using a greens powder…?

If your Instagram feed is filled with promos for products like AG1, you may wonder if you too should sip on a daily greens powder. Here’s my professional take on the topic.