Posted on by Yannis Kavounis

One thing I learnt #4: Bunny Hacks: How to trick your other half to eat more dark greens and cruciferous veggies

Let’s face it, we’ve all been there. You want to be really good, eat wholesome, get your daily greens, but then, your other half, blows your perfect plan up in the air! Damn them. I find deep greens of a particular issue, my partner’s favourite nagging subject during dinner: too much kale, the ratio of spinach to pasta is not right (as if there is some cosmological Golden Ratio rule for spinach!), I can feel the texture of broccoli (well, that’s because I put in broccoli, I want to snap back, but I let go), or my favourite comment ‘what a ridiculous name, cruciferous, I’ll never eat something with such a name’. So, what to do? 

First things first, why should we all be obsessed with dark green and cruciferous vegetables, the likes of spinach, collards, kale, mustard greens, arugula, broccoli, just to name a few? Simply put, they punch above their weight, literally, they are dense with stuff, but really low in calories. They are dirty filthy rich in micro-nutrients such is folate, a parade of vitamins and minerals, as well as phytonutrients which protect cells from DNA damage, and have antibacterial and anti-viral effects. They do deserve a separate blog entry (look out for it). The issue with this food is that they are the green hater’s poster child: they are ‘difficult’ for everyday eating, especially the dark leafy greens, because they contain chemicals that discourage animals from eating them. It’s those chemicals that make greens bitter and gives them a very specific taste that my other half loves to loathe. 

My other issue has to do with the whole semiotics surrounding this misunderstood type of food as promoted by nutritionists and doctors: stale, non-creative, cooked in uninspiring ways, usually shown as a blob of green stuff. Lazy! So here are three simple ways to spice them up, make them sexy and appealing even to the most difficult of family members: 

  1. Integrate them in your favourite pasta sauce, whatever it might be. Remember, green-haters love pasta, so this is a major secret weapon for you. You’ll have to play around with this but here are some suggestions: 
    • Tomato based sauces go well with broccoli 
    • White sauces prefer to date spinach or bok choy 
    • Butter and garlic based sauces are in love with kale or collards   
    • Cold pasta dishes with arugula are a match made on Grindr (or Tinder?)
  2. Grill them with olive oil, garlic, chili flakes and lemon – you can’t go wrong with this combination – and serve them as a side dish, especially with fish. 
  3. Cheese them up – literally – if you’re not vegan. Choose a vegetable that your partner hates the least and look for a recipe online, there are tons, and cheese the hell out of it. I know the purist will complain that this is not healthy eating advice. I say, go for it, if it is to save you arguing time! 
  4. Turn them into a snack – harder to do and not appropriate for all of them, but here are two ideas to get you going (again, tons of recipes, choose the simplest one): 
    • Broccoli pesto; I spread it on oven-crisped sourdough (of course, it has to be sourdough bread, I see you rolling your eyes up) 
    • Kale crisps, baked with olive oil, chili and garlic

Let’s do it then, let’s pimp those greens up and your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife/ partner/one-night-stand won’t know what hit them! 

Select rabbit hole notes, not many this time:

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