The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Siencyn]

Sorry if this is a silly question, but I've been poking all over the internet and haven't been able to find a good answer.

Why is it that some veggies are only on the cooked list and others on the uncooked? Is there some reason that eating a quarter cup of raw green pepper is okay but one cup cooked is bad?

Is there a good way to figure out what constitutes a cup of any given vegetable? I'm just not sure if I'm measuring out my veggies right.

[Diet Diva]

Hello there,

Let me take a stab at this and see if I can answer your question...

1/4 cup of raw veggies with greens would be the nutritional equivalent of 1-1/2 cups of cooked veggies. The medifast plans calls for measuring either cooked or uncooked veggies to ensure that you 'get enough of the good stuff' since veggies lose some of their nutritional value once cooked via steaming, boiling, etc....so I hope this helps a bit.

Now remember that the veggies need to fall in the category of non starchy. Starchy veggies would be corn, potatoes, peas, or beans/ legumes.

Take care,
Diet Diva

[Nancy]

Some veggies have more carbs/sugars than others and when you eat a larger portion of them cooked you will consume more carbs and it can affect the nutritional balance of protein:carbs:fat.

If your weight loss has slowed down all of a sudden and you are eating a different combination of vegetables or more tomatoes, red peppers or carrots, that could be the reason why.

Some salad mixes contain carrot - in small amounts it is probably not a serious problem but I wouldn’t suggest that a person eat 1.5 cups of cooked baby carrots – those sweet gems may be small but they are carbier than most green veggies.

(When I was on the weight loss program, I picked out every scrap of carrot. No croutons or regular salad dressing slid down my throat.)

Another example would be that on a dinner salad often there will be some mushrooms, a cherry tomato or two and possibly some red and yellow pepper. Red and yellow peppers tend to be higher in carbohydrate content than green peppers so while a bite or two of red pepper as a salad topper would be all right, our approved list for cooked vegetables includes green peppers but not red or yellow peppers to keep the carbohydrate count in check...

It is always best to trust the program exactly as it is written, to not try new combinations of vegetables, to not super-size the portions or to mess with the protocol. Safety and success are in the clinically proven program.