So here's a question I don't remember seeing...

When you're counting your cups of vegetables, do you count the amount raw or cooked or however you've prepared them?

For example, this morning I sauteed fresh spinach for my omelet. Two cups of packed fresh spinach cooked down to about a quarter cup. What do I count it as? I've always counted it as two cups, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't "cheating".

And what about tomato juice? How many tomatoes go into making a cup of juice?! I remember (when we actually had our kitchen appliances...) juicing an entire bag of carrots and another of apples and getting about half a pitcher of juice.

Thanks!

Kara

I count it raw, since the fiber and calories are the same cooked or uncooked. Maybe a few less vitamins, but otherwise nutrionally the same.

I count it raw too. Also for V8, I count one 4 oz serving as one cup of veggies. This may not be the right way to do it, but that's what I do. Don't know about tomato juice.

kara STOP OVERTHINKING THIS

count it raw...

juice is 6 oz

I do tend to overthink things...

Kara

hee, I do that too.

good question...i tend to drive myself crazy with this stuff too..I would agree with everyone that you would count it raw...but how about V8 juice? When I buy it in a can(like a soda can) it says it is equivalent 2 servings of vegetables. Is that really true pertaining to this diet?

that is two servings of v8 only ONE can count as veggies for the day!

I get the little 5.5oz cans of V8 or Campbell's... the can says it counts as 1/2c veggies... That's what I go by for the V8... I generally have one can a day, or else when I feel like I haven't gotten enough veggies.

This is how I count...ok, a handfull of this, a glob of that...sprinkle some of that junk on it...

I don't know that I'd want to eat a "glob of that"!

You'd get along well with Rachel Ray, Cat.

Kara

It is like when you hear someone say "a mess of greens". You know what they are talking about. "Glob" "Mess". It is all the same. A lot.

I loved drinking V-8 juice decades before it was a SBD staple. I drink 8 oz almost every day and count that as one serving because on the bottle it says that 8 oz is one serving and 50 calories.

One of the other tools I am using to get back to eating like a normal person is reeducating my mouth, my stomach and my eyes to what one serving size looks like. I count out whatever the package or label suggests. That way I know what it is when I am somewhere where the counting out has been done for me (like at someone else's house or in a
restaurant).

The 4 1/2 c of vegetables is a suggestion and my understanding a minimal at best. You can have more if you want. In fact, I have read that you can have as much as 7-8 c. of vegetables, if you desire.

Kara, I think what you said was correct. It is the pre-cooked stage when you are measuring although I often measure many of my vegetables post-cooked just because that is how they came to me to begin with.

I think if we spend our time making our vegetables taste as good as the rest of our meals we will eat more of them. That has been the problem all along for most of us. We overloaded our plates with high fat starches so long that we have to retrain our taste buds to actually prefer and like foods that are not so overwhelming with fat, sugar and salt. It has taken me several years but I think I have finally arrived at that point.

There are a lot of good posts on here about how to prepare and which vegetables to gravitate towards. When I found out that cucumbers had little nutritional value, I have stopped buying them. Why fill up on foods that offer little to building my body and its strength?? I have read that mushrooms are the vegetable to eat so I got a lot of recipes on that from "Vegetarian Times" and now I am off and running on how to make it my food of choice.

So, gimme a glob of this and a mess of that....and yes spinach will make me as strong as Popeye. Remember what he used to say "I'm strong to the finish, cuz I eat me spinach, I'm Popeye the sailor man!"

Now, would Popeye lie?

Pam, cucumbers are VERY low in calories (maybe 20 calories for a cup or something like that) and have a great crunch to them, so having some on a salad or sandwich is not bad for you. I like having foods like cucumbers and apple slices and pepper strips that have satisfying crunches because it takes the place of pretzels and tortilla chips for me. Plus, they're so cool and refreshing in the summer because they have so much water in them.

I agree they shouldn't *replace* other, more nutritionally-dense, veggies in your meal plans, but there's nothing wrong with eating cucumbers.

Kara