How to Use Vegetables in a Mediterranean Diet

Often times, a Mediterranean diet consists of very straightforward, simple meals, which focus on bringing out the purest natural flavors of the ingredients. The traditional Mediterranean diet is low in saturated fat and includes mostly plant foods to make up the core of your daily food intake. Use minimally processed vegetables to get the daily requirements of this diet.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Buy, pick or harvest a wide range of root and leafy vegetables to use in salads, as main courses and for side dishes. Leafy green vegetables such as kale, Swiss chard and spinach contain an impressive list of health-promoting nutrients like antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that you need to get the most out of your Mediterranean diet.

2. Prepare meals with eggplants, cucumbers, cauliflower, zucchini, tomatoes and other farm vegetables--all of which are optimum plant foods for adding variety to your meals. Since you will be limiting your intake of pork and red meat on this diet, do the most you can with an assortment of vegetables to tantalize your palate so you won't miss what you cannot have. Any kind of vegetable is a perfect ingredient for stir-fry, wraps or burritos.

3. Eat vegetables every day. When possible, always have fresh vegetables in your crisper. In addition, keep frozen spinach and an assortment of bagged vegetables in your freezer to add to side dishes if you're in a pinch for farm-fresh items. Make spinach and mushroom salads for lunch and have sweet potatoes as a side dish for main meals.

4. Spice up your diet with creative cooking. Get your nutrients by including herbs and vegetables in sauces and side dishes. Make an Italian pesto with basil, garlic and pine nuts or a roasted red pepper and tomato sauce. You can use vegetables to enhance side dishes, too, by adding onions, garbanzo or cannellini beans to your menu items. Roast vegetables on the grill or in your oven. When you roast green or red peppers, eggplants and vidalia onions, you can enhance their flavors even more.

5. Incorporate vegetables into your pasta bowls. Discover escarole, broccoli rabe, whole tomatoes and garlic to jazz up garden-variety pasta dishes. Pasta is part of the big picture of a Mediterranean diet, and when balanced in your diet and combined with other foods like vegetables, is not a harmful choice. More importantly, when properly cooked al dente, hard or durum wheat pasta is a healthy, energy-giving source of food.

Tips & Warnings

• Do a lot of prep work to help get your daily vegetables. For example, chop carrots, celery and radishes, slice peppers and then pack them in sandwich bags to have them readily available to munch on during the week.

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