How to Increase Vitamins in Your Diet Easily

Everyone already knows that more vitamins should be incorporated in their daily diet, but how can this be done easily? Vitamins will be more easily absorbed by eating healthy, natural, fresh foods. Supplements should be saved for just what their name implies, a supplement to complete any holes in your nutritional intake in case you miss obtaining an essential vitamin naturally through meals or snacks during the day.

1. Start with increasing the amount of fruit you eat on a daily basis. Fruits come in many different colors and varieties, different colors offer different essential vitamins, antioxidants, and enzymes. The best choice is fresh; however, eating fruit baked, canned, and frozen is better than none at all. Due to seasonal harvests, sometimes canned and frozen is the only way to obtain them at certain times of the year.

Select a variety of fresh fruits in different colors to eat daily. Throw a mix of deeply hued berries on your cereal or oatmeal. Have a grapefruit or orange with breakfast or lunch. Eat an apple, plum, or pear as a snack. Eat a fruit cup or fruit salad with some whip cream, nuts, and a cherry for dessert. Put a scoop (1/2 cup is a serving) of ice cream on top of slice peaches or pears. If you make sure to purchase fruit, you can find delicious ways to incorporate more of it into your diet.

2. Eat more vegetables, especially dark, green leafy ones. Vegetables like fruit are an excellent way to increase your vitamin intake and your body will absorb vitamins more easily from natural whole food sources like vegetables. If you usually eat one vegetable with dinner, start by adding two or three more to the mix. Choose vegetables in a variety of colors too, as these colors contain different vitamins and nutrients essential to good health.

Learn to incorporate more vegetables into your main dishes. If you usually make chicken, rice, and beans, then throw a diced onion, diced garlic, and a fresh chopped tomato (a fruit) into the mix. If you make a nice fish dinner with asparagus for a side, throw some carrots with 1 teaspoon each of butter and olive oil in the dish too. If you make an omelet or scrambled eggs, added chopped spinach and broccoli with some cheese.

3. Make a healthy snack tray filled with fresh, tasty vegetables. Place the tray out before dinner or as an appetizer with some dip. There are a variety of healthy dips that can be made to dip your vegetables in. This one tip alone can help people to eat 4 to 5 extra vegetables a week.

Remember that broccoli and cauliflower contain different nutrients and vitamins, so either buy both or alternate each week. Prepare your tray once a week right after you shop, this is a great habit to get into and it makes it convenient for you and your family to snack on healthy veggies. Don't feel bad or guilty about using dip with your vegetables or topping them with cheese, if you need dips or cheese to eat your vegetables, then use it. It is more important to eat your vegetables so that you can have a greater variety of vitamins in your diet from natural whole food sources.

4. Add instant breakfast to your breakfast pantry, these come in single serve packets to be mixed with milk or a canister. Instant breakfast is a complete nutritional drink that has 2 times the protein of an egg, 2 times the calcium of a yogurt, and 21 - yes, 21, vitamins and minerals.

Instant breakfast tastes delicious in milk. The chocolate is fabulous and if you like chocolate milk, this is a much healthier alternative than the artificial chocolate syrups. The chocolate powder flavor can be added to coffee or hot cocoa and the vanilla powder flavor can be added to cappuccino, just a teaspoonful or two will add an extra punch of vitamins.

5. Take a multivitamin, preferably one that is formulated for easy absorption. Many liquid softgels are formulated for easy absorption. If you are a woman, make sure that you get enough iron and calcium. If you don't eat enough spinach salads or green leafy vegetables, the multivitamin is a safety net.

Many vitamins and other products are offering coupons online for their products, so before you buy your vitamins or instant breakfast, check the manufacturers website for coupons or call the question/comment line and ask if they will send you some. These coupons can save you substantially, and your savings will add up fast. Also, certain stores offer buy one get one free specials on vitamins on a rotational basis. So don't let price keep you from adding vitamins to your diet.