Hopefully I'm not fooling you with the "slimming" part of the title of this article as most vegetables are by far better for us than any other food group in terms of weight gain/loss. The facts are that vegetables are the very next food group below protein for weight loss surgery patients or for that matter, anyone who wants to lose weight. Not only are most of them low in calories, they are also full of nutrients, antioxidants, minerals and vitamins.
Before we get to the Top 10 list of veggies, we need to talk a bit about preparing and cooking vegetables so that we get the most out of their benefits.
Fresh vegetables is always the way to go. Frozen can work as a good 2nd choice, but forget canned vegetables. There's not much left of all the great nutrients in vegetables after the canning process.
In preparing vegetables, always make sure your thoroughly wash them. It's estimated that as many as 25 to 30 people touch our fruit and vegetables before we buy them in our super market. That's form the person in the field who picked them - to the 10 people who dug through them in the bin at the supermarket before you purchased them. Have you ever watched people picking through the vegetables at your supermarket? Who buys those vegetables that the person before you looked at and put back? You do - That's who! ALWAYS wash every vegetable you eat.
The best way to cook vegetable is to steam, bake or eat them raw. Using these 3 methods retains all the nutrients in the vegetables. If you boil them, the majority of the nutrients are leached from the food. It's OK if you're making soup, but if you throw those juices away after boiling vegetables, you my as well have save yourself the time preparing the vegetable, because you won't get any of the valuable nutrients from them.
OK, so here's my list of the Top 10 Vegetables for Weight Loss or WLS Post-ops:
1. Any/All Green leafy vegetables - this includes ALL Lettuces, Spinach, Kale etc.
2. Cucumbers
3. All Sweet Bell Peppers (Any colour)
4. Tomatoes ( I know, they're a fruit - but you won't find them on my fruit list, so they have to go here)
5. Carrots
6. Green Peas
7. Yams
8. Squash
9. Sweet potatoes
10. Garlic and Onions
Now you might wonder why Broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels Sprouts aren't on the list? The facts are, these 3 veggies are wonderfully full of vitamins, minerals, etc - unfortunately they're also fairly gassy. Many Post-op gastric by-pass people may find they can't tolerate these 3 veggies. The trick is to try them and see. If you can tolerate them, then you get to add them to your list.
Ron Merk
WLS Support
ron.merk@telus.net
http://www.blazeonline.com/wls/
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