Yikes is right! Isn’t that just lovely?! Actually to me it is. And I promise it isn’t my newest casserole
all ready to eat for dinner! This is a picture of my kitchen compost. And why exactly would that picture be lovely to me, you may ask? Because it shows, loosely, how many vegetables have made it into our meals in the last 24 hours – 36 hours. Not counting all the egg shells that are in there!
We know we are supposed to be eating several servings of vegetables and fruit daily. The problem for me is a don’t really know how many I eat. I don’t think about it or I forget what I did eat. With a visual I can tell that at least we’ve been eating some and what we have been eating. My husband emptied the composter – which, by the way, is just the inner container from an old crockpot – into our outdoor compost on Friday evening after dinner. So what you see is all that collected through Sunday lunch. There were broccoli stalks, kale stems, purple cabbage stalks, garlic papers, onion ends, green bell pepper cores, apple cores and the end of a head of lettuce. Now we didn’t actually eat all of the good parts of those things. Some of them are still in the refrigerator as leftovers from the meals I made. The cabbage core is what is left over from the sauerkraut that is being naturally pickled into a probiotic food. But the visual does tell me that at least for the weekend we’ve had a fair amount of produce. If I’m physically carrying out the compost every day or two I know that we are eating at least some produce. If it’s been several days then it’s time to be intentional about getting more in.
And why do I want to eat all that produce in the first place? Well, for one thing, I really enjoy the food we eat. It’s tasty, if nothing else! However, the benefits of eating lots of veggies and fruit are numerous. Here are a few: vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, protection against chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer, may lessen risk of cancer and stroke, may lessen risk of kidney disease and diabetes.
So with great tasting veggies and fruit and the benefits of eating them I keep my composter as full as possible! How do you keep track of how many you are eating?
Let's Eat 
I make a lot of trips out to the compost because I don’t like it sitting on the counter. I usually put it in a clear produce bag leftover from the store. I figure I need to do something with those bags. But you’re right, it is a good way to measure what you’ve eaten in a day.
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Wonderful! I have been on a keto diet for a few weeks and am loving getting lots more veggies. I hope to prevent disease instead of just eating bad and worrying about it happening. I feel so much better!!! I keep track of carbs and other counts on My Fitness Pal ap. It is a great tool. Blessings!
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