Last week I announced our Monthly Challenge for August: Eat Veggies With Every Meal!

I also shared 5 big reasons why you need to eat more vegetables – Check out the post here.

Since then I’ve received a bunch of messages that all say something to the effect of:

“I get the whole idea of eating more veggies but… For breakfast? That’s preposterous!”

Ok, ok… no one actually used the word preposterous, but you get my drift: Apart from the onions and mushrooms in your Sunday brunch omelet, eating vegetables for breakfast just seems wrong…

And I get it.

Habits run strong when it comes to what we choose to eat, and traditional food habits are tightly linked to culture. The North American breakfast food culture is heavily slanted toward breads, cereals, and fruits with the occasional ‘guilty pleasure’ of bacon ’n eggs “but watch out for all that unhealthy fat and cholesterol!” (sarcasm alert – fat and cholesterol are good for you).

But ‘traditional’ does equal rational and in this case, there’s no reason to avoid veggies at breakfast, and a ton of reasons TO INCLUDE THEM.

Apart from the cultural faux-pas and personal preference, there are no reasons to avoid any otherwise healthy food at any meal:) And since veggies fulflll, some of the most important nutrient requirements we have as humans, finding ways to get more of them into your belly is a really good thing.

How To Eat More Vegetables For Breakfast

I’ll admit, I don’t always have veggies with my breakfast… In fact, I often don’t eat breakfast at all (Gasp! Shock! Horror!). I tend to run best on an intermittent fasting protocol and my first meal of the day is around 1 pm but let’s not get sidetracked here…

However this month I’m committed to eating veggies with every meal so when I DO have breakfast, here’s how I make sure to include a healthy dose of vegetables.

Some general guidelines first:

Keep it really simple. You don’t need to produce a 5-star restaurant meal every day.  A simple strategy would be to choose 1 vegetable each morning and add it to what you are already eating.  Another is to have leftovers from the night before or choose your fave salad and just eat it in the morning instead of at lunch.

Here’s some specific ideas to get your brain going.

1.  Raw veggie sticks with Goaty Guacamole

This is the easiest and simplest way to get more veggies in and takes about 3 minutes to prep in the morning.

I often add this to my standard bacon ’n egg breakfast – simply chop some carrot, celery and cucumber sticks to dip in my delicious ‘Goaty Guacamole.’ For this recipe watch Episode 041.

2.  Green Smoothie

Another quick and easy solution is to add in a green smoothie into your morning routine. Put ‘green smoothie recipe’ into the ‘ole googler and you’ll find thousands of recipes – most of which combine some green veggies with various fruits. My go-to recipe is from Kristin over at Eat By Design Coaching.

I often simplify this one and simply put several leafs of kale (de-ribbed) along with the apple, banana, avocado, lemon and protein powder. This typically lasts at least 24hrs if sealed and in the fridge so you can prep once and eat twice.

3.  Last Night’s Stir Fry With Soft Boiled Eggs

This is a great way to apply the ‘cook once eat twice’ principle, as lightly steamed or fried veggies will last in your fridge for several days. Not to mention you can easily prep the night before for that early morning departure.

When you’re prepping any kind of veggie stir-fry, double the recipe.  During your clean-up, boil 2-3 eggs for ~5-6 min and immediately add to cold water to cool. I like to remove the shell and prep the whole meal in a Tupperware dish so that it’s ready to grab in the morning.

*A soft or liquid yolk maintains the highest nutrient density. If you prefer your yolks hard, just know that you’re missing out on a lot of high-quality nutrients!

4.  Bacon ’n Egg Salsa

This is one of my favorite post-workout meals on the weekends when I can prep and eat at the same time.

Cook bacon to your liking. Chop a large tomato, a small handful of cilantro, 1/4 red onion, and 1/2 avocado and add to a mixing bowl. Remove the bacon and fry 2-3 eggs (over-easy is my preference) in bacon fat. While eggs are cooking, chop the bacon, crumble a healthy chunk of feta cheese into the bowl and add salt and pepper to taste. Mix the contents and add to a bowl. Add eggs over top and dig in!

5.  Mini Spanish Tortillas

One of my staple food prep items is our infamous B’egg’s because they are so easy to prep in bulk and last all week in your fridge:) Check out episode 042 for that recipe.

When I host people for brunch one of my favorite things to prepare is various Spanish tortillas. You can prep them the night before, eat cold and – the best part – it’s a great way to fill up on vegetables for breakfast!

The downside is they take a bit of time to prepare and cook.  That is until I discovered this simple hack and merged these 2 together! Prep time is ~ 30min but you can make a week’s worth of breakfasts:)

The staples for any Spanish tortilla is some sort of potato and onion mixed with eggs and baked. However, I often use this as a fridge clean-out dish and chuck in whatever veggies (and leftover meat) are left from the previous week.

You’ll need a muffin tin and large frying pan. This recipe will approximately make 1 dozen mini Spanish tortillas. I often double it to have lots for the week:)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F

Chop 2 med sized potatoes into 0.5cm cubes. finely chop 1 small onion (yellow or purple work well), a clove of garlic, 1/2 red pepper, 3-4 mushrooms along with any other veggies you want to add.

Heat 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil (or use bacon fat like me:-) in a pan, add potatoes and cover for ~4-5min or until softened and slighly brown. add the onions and cover for another minute. add the remaining ingredients along with a generous amt of sea salt and pepper and cover for another 3-4min or until lightly cooked.

While they’re cooking crack 8-9 eggs and whisk.

Remove the veggies from the pan and let cool for ~5min in a separate bowl. In the meantime grease the muffin tin with retained bacon fat or EVOO.  Add the veggies to the eggs and mix. Optional is to add some cheese (eg goat feta cheese or grated raw cheddar).

Fill the muffin tin 3/4 full, and bake for 10-12min or until cooked all the way thru.

Remove immediately from muffin tin with a spoon and let cool on a rack. Enjoy fresh or store in a sealed container in the fridge.

I’d love to hear your feedback – how do get more vegetables for breakfast??

Dr. John MacPhee is a Chiropractor, speaker and passionate health and wellness expert. He has inspired thousands of people to take control of their own health using the Life By Design method. Dr. John is co-owner of The Wellness Group, the largest Life By Design Certified Chiropractic office in Canada. Apart from full-time practice, John maintains a busy speaking schedule, with a particular emphasis on improving productivity and focus at work. Otherwise, you can find John training hard at CrossFit 613, exploring Gatineau Park, or holed away studying the latest research at various cafes across the west end.