Photo Credit: Aelle on Flickr.com
“Make sure you get three to five servings of vegetables”, you’ve been hearing that phrase for years. Did you know that you could have had some orange juice for that serving? Or that there’s now a full serving in the leading pasta sauce? It’s true! How much really indicates a true serving though?
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) states a serving of vegetables is about ½ a cup. This half cup is equal to the following:
- Ten baby carrots
- ¾ cup of tomato juice
- One ear of corn
- Half a baked sweet potato
Since you can get a full serving in a variety of places, don’t worry about heating 50 baby carrots a day. When most people think of vegetables, they think about salads, broccoli, carrots etc. While these are all great areas to get your three to five servings, there are others as well.
Casseroles and tomato sauce are two places that most people don’t think to look when they want vegetables. Most casseroles have five or six different types of vegetables including: onions, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc. At its heart, marinara sauce is is made of tomato, water, spices and few extra vegetables mixed in. There’s no rule that says you can’t mix and match vegetables to make each serving either; instead, the opposite is true! Because of this, you can get a good amount of vegetables in these two items.
Try out the following recipes and then learn which vegetables will give you the most bang for your buck.
Spinach Lasagna Rolls
Sweet Potato Chips
Which Lettuce is the Most Nutritious
