The diet gives a bigger choice of vegetables, but most of them are vegetables that I wouldn't normally eat. Here's the list:
Radishes Cucumbers Celery
Fennel Cabbage Tomato
Spinach Lettuce Onions
Asparagus Beet Greens Chard
I've managed to just use a few of these - primarily tomatoes, onions, celery, cucumbers, asparagus and lettuce and haven't felt like we're eating the same thing everyday. I'm also going to look in to the nutritional values of green and yellow squash as love to snack on raw squash and they don't seem to be a high-sugar veg, especially compared to tomatoes. What I HAVE already added are mini-bell peppers (sparingly, as part of a Shrimp Ceviche I cobbled together), Hearts of Palm and dill pickles. The pickles I've used not as a lone vegetable but, a single baby-dill as a side to a hamburger patty. While pickles are a zero/extremely low calorie food, they are high in sodium so I limit them. Today I used a can of Ro-Tel style diced tomatoes with green chilis, added to 6oz of browned lean-ground beef. Threw in some spices and voila, a chunky, spicy chili that my husband commented would be great off the diet as taco meat. Look for that in the recipe section!
The only thing I don't like about the diet is their use of "approximately a handful" as the vegetable serving size. Whose handful? Mine, my husbands? How do I measure a handful of asparagus spears? I have just gone with my gut instinct on this one. Veges high in sugar, like tomatoes, I use about 1/4-1/2 cup. I love using grape tomatoes as a lunch veg, especially paired with chicken breast deli meat or cottage cheese. I feel free to add salad greens in just about any quantity - they're extremely low calorie and add fiber. And yes, I use salad greens, not lettuce. Iceburg lettuce is, in my opinion, tasteless. I would rather have a mix of deep green and even purplish-red greens like Frisee, Arugula, Radicchio, Mizuna, Tatsoi, Mache and Oakleaf. They're filled with flavor, from bitter to sweet and add a variety of textures. Plain old iceburg or even romaine just seem so blah after getting used to salad greens. Sprinkle a little red wine vinegar over the greens, then add half a can of sliced Hearts of Palm and 3oz of Imitation Crab chunks and you have a meal fit for a King!
The only thing I don't like about the diet is their use of "approximately a handful" as the vegetable serving size. Whose handful? Mine, my husbands? How do I measure a handful of asparagus spears? I have just gone with my gut instinct on this one. Veges high in sugar, like tomatoes, I use about 1/4-1/2 cup. I love using grape tomatoes as a lunch veg, especially paired with chicken breast deli meat or cottage cheese. I feel free to add salad greens in just about any quantity - they're extremely low calorie and add fiber. And yes, I use salad greens, not lettuce. Iceburg lettuce is, in my opinion, tasteless. I would rather have a mix of deep green and even purplish-red greens like Frisee, Arugula, Radicchio, Mizuna, Tatsoi, Mache and Oakleaf. They're filled with flavor, from bitter to sweet and add a variety of textures. Plain old iceburg or even romaine just seem so blah after getting used to salad greens. Sprinkle a little red wine vinegar over the greens, then add half a can of sliced Hearts of Palm and 3oz of Imitation Crab chunks and you have a meal fit for a King!
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