12 Steps to Whole Foods

CHAPTER 2
Making Salad the Star
Your Goal:
Making a colorful, green/vegetable salad the “main dish” at supper. To make this a habit for life, the
keys are (a) simplicity and (b) variety. You can now make what was formerly your “main dish” half its
original size.
What You’ll Need:
You don’t need to buy anything new this month, though investment in a couple of very sharp knives
will make your life—newly committed to plant foods—so much easier! I love my Cutco knives, with
free sharpening for life (www.cutco.com).
It might seem strange to you that our second step
toward a diet of whole foods is still primarily
focused on vegetables, and even more greens.
That’s how strongly I feel that Americans are
mostly missing out on the best foods available on
the planet—raw vegetables and, particularly,
green foods. Remember from the introduction
that part of our goal is getting about two pounds
of vegetables (half of those greens) in an adult’s
daily diet. A big salad with dinner is a great
second step towards that end.
A comparison of beets, parsnips, radishes, and
turnips with their above-ground counterparts
(beet greens, parsley, and radish and turnip
greens) reveals why greens are worth taking
another look at for dinner. The below-ground root
vegetables are certainly good for you! But they
average more than double the calories, carbs, and
sugar than the greens attached to them above
ground. And they have only about 50-70% of the
vitamin, mineral, and enzyme content. The fact
that may surprise you most is that beet greens,
parsley, and turnip greens have about twice as
much protein as the root vegetables they’re attached to! Again, ounce for ounce, green foods are the
most perfect, sustaining foods on the planet—low in calories, high in nutrition.
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw 12 Steps to Whole Foods 53