Variety in diet

I love all the oriental veggies and you can make them in stir frys very low in calories and fat if you so desire. You also don't have to add any soy sauce, or salt of any kind. You should give them a try. Add chicken or turkey, fish or beef to pump them up. Delish

I have a subscription to Cooking Light (any magazine with recipes will do). I make a point to try one new recipe a week, particularly those with different ingredients.

We like bok choy and Chinese cabbage along with snow peas.

I have no idea where "South" is, but if its near Cincinnati, I can recommend "Country Fresh Farm Markets". Three of them in the area. The guy that owns them shops daily in an area near the river where all the produce wholesalers have their warehouses, selling to the grocery chains in the area.
It isn't unusual to find 4 or 5 kinds of lettuce, 5 or 6 apple varieties, etc.
They cater to shoppers that want more variety in produce but don't want to buy a case of lettuce at one time.
Check the Yellow Pages for produce stores, but call first to see if you can purchase in less than case quantities.

Growing up in the south, we did not see a lot of vegetables from other parts of the country or from other countries. Now there's asparagus and artichokes, all kinds of melons and berries, Chinese snow peas. I love to grill the Cornish game hens - they are so much tastier than chicken. I've added lamb and duck to the diet too. A favorite for a 'snack' dinner is a fresh French or sourdough baguette, various cheeses, pate, and fruit served with a glass of wine.

Exotic? No. Just different than what we had growing up.

You can cut your ground beef intake by 50% or more by adding falafel. Try a wrap with falafel "meatballs," lettuce, sliced onions, tomatoes, etc. and a low-fat dressing (or hummus if you like the stuff).

dcason wrote:
How about fresh salads daily?

Mexican style meals: burritos

Sautéed veggies over rice with Asian style dressing.

This is old hat. I was thinking of some of the Chinese vegetables when I thought of posting but.
We eat out, or did quite often. Don't much care for soy sauce anything or much of what I ate in Nam, or Kimche or just raw stuff we eat cooked.
I can't quite get wife to buy some of the different things we see at the high price spread.
There is a whole lot of vegetables and fruits, in the tropics and elsewhere we don't see much or any of. Though maybe there might be someone that has worked "exotics" into their diets and where to obtain and so on. I see so fa everyone is eating the same diet we are. I am going to plant some Kiwis, which everyone eats, and several varieties of berries not common here.

How about fresh salads daily?

Mexican style meals: burritos

Sautéed veggies over rice with Asian style dressing.

down home, if you read this board regularly and occassionally go out to a restaurant, you should have all the examples you'd ever want to try for something new. When my wife and I start a weight loss diet, finding variety can be really difficult if one is on a restrictive diet like we are on low carb. I feel like I'm eating the same things every day. A lot of the examples you listed were culturally different kinds of food. Those would be my first recommendation to trying some different restaurants to see if you like that kind of food. I am also an avid cookbook reader. Whenever we are at the grocery checkout, I'm reading the little paperback cookboks. I have no problem buying a $5.00 cookbook if I see even one recipe I like in the few minutes I'm standing there. I owe my favorite meat loaf recipe to it. LOL!