As children, many of us heard the classic mandate “Eat your vegetables,” and yet few of us seem to be heeding that advice as adults. Only 9 percent of American adults are getting the recommended daily intake of 2 to 3 cups of vegetables per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They’re missing out on the vitamins and minerals that a daily diet rich in vegetables can bring, and putting themselves at higher risk for some cancers, as well as chronic conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes, the CDC points out.
Desiree Nielsen, RD, a chef in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the author of Un-Junk Your Diet: How to Shop, Cook, and Eat to Fight Inflammation and Feel Better Forever, and the upcoming book Eat More Plants, suspects a couple of reasons for the disconnect. Overcooking is one of them. “I think for a lot of people, they grew up eating sort of mushy, flavorless veggies, maybe with a little salt on them. I totally get why vegetables might not seem like the most interesting thing to them.”