VEGGIE STARTER

VEGGIE STARTERS TO STEADY YOUR GLUCOSE :
THE ULTIMATE 2025 GUIDE

This is a complete guide to veggie starters, one of my most powerful hacks.

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So if you’re looking to: 

→ Manage your glucose.

→ Reduce cravings and hunger.

→ Feel amazing. 

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Then you're in the right place. Let’s get started.

ADDING VEGGIES TO YOUR DAY


When I talk about the veggie starter hack, I’m talking about adding a dish at the beginning of your meals. You will eat more than you usually do and flatten your glucose curves in the process. The goal here is to return to
how food used to be, before it was processed: wherever there were starches and sugars, there was also fiber. By adding a delicious veggie starter, we’re bringing fiber back.

THE MORE FIBER, THE BETTER


The amount of fiber we eat these days is much lower than what we should be eating.

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Fiber is in the structural lining of plants—it’s abundant in leaves and we get most of our fiber from beans and vegetables. It's is incredibly important to us: it fuels the good bacteria in our gut, strengthens our microbiome, lowers our cholesterol levels, and makes sure everything runs smoothly. 

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Fiber is also good for our glucose levels for several reasons, notably because it creates a viscous mesh in our intestine. The mesh slows down and reduces the absorption of glucose molecules from food across the intestinal lining.

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We know that consuming more fiber is beneficial and that eating it before all the other foods is even more so. That’s why adding a veggie starter to each of our meals has a powerful effect on our glucose curves.

VEGGIES FIRST!


The objective is to add additional vegetables as a starter to a meal:

 

  • To make up about 30% of the meal,

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  • The veggies can be raw, cooked, baked, and be dressed with any protein or fat that you like. We eat more and steady our glucose levels at the same time,

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  • The veggie starter can be consumed up to 90 minutes before the main meal, and the effects of the protective fiber will remain. It can also be consumed just before the rest of the meal.

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And this hack is best used before the meal of the day highest in starches and sugars.


If you're not able to have a veggie starter before your meal (because we can't always have brocoli in our bag before eating a gelato), you can always take 2 capsules of Anti-Spike Formula to reduce the glucose spike of your meal by up to 40%.

ADDING PROTEIN OR FAT


To make our veggie starter tasty and delicious, we can add protein or fat to it, such as:

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  • Protein: seeds, nuts, full fat Greek yogurt, feta cheese, mozzarella, parmesan cheese, etc.​
  • Fat: olive oil, pesto, coconut yogurt, salad dressing, etc.

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Avoid adding starch or sugar to your veggie starter. We want the fiber to be there first, so if you can, keep the starch for the main dish, and the sugar for dessert.

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Beware of premade dressings you can buy in grocery stores. They’re often packed with sugar and loaded with vegetable oil—it’s better to make a simple one from scratch.

 

My recipe for homemade salad dressing is:

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  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon of vinegar (any kind you like)
  • An optional tablespoon of dijon mustard (if you like the kick)
  • Salt and pepper

 

I usually make a batch of dressing every Sunday and keep it in the fridge to use all week.

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    TIPS & TRICKS


    Here are some more tips and tricks I've used to make this hack as easy as possible:

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    • Buy raw veggies that you like. Such as raw baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, or veggies from a jar like asparagus or artichokes, and just munch on these before a meal if you're hungry. This is more like assembling than cooking. I like to add some hummus or guacamole too. If you're cooking, why not eat the raw veggies as you're preparing the meal.

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    • Do some batch cooking. I like roasting a large batch of veggies over the weekend and keeping them in the fridge to reheat and serve as a veggie starter before any meal.

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    • A little bit is better than nothing. If you can’t make the veggie starter make up 30% of your overall meal, that’s fine – we're here to do things when they're easy. Even a couple of mouthfuls of veggies are better than nothing at all.

    • When a veggie starter isn't possible, you can take my Anti-Spike supplement with you wherever you go (that's why I made a cute pillbox to go with it!). It can reduce the glucose spike of your meal by up to 40%.

    COMMON QUESTIONS

    Yes, of course, you can always add more veggies to the rest of the meal.

    You’ll know you’re doing this hack properly if the veggie starter makes up about 30% of your overall food quantity for that meal. Then, as you eat your veggies, picture the fiber from them arriving in your digestive system and setting up camp there to protect you for the rest of the meal.

    You might find that you eat less of your regular meal afterwards – however, eating less afterwards is not the objective. I encourage you to eat just as you normally do and to just add this veggie starter to the front end of your meal.

    And remember that any amount is better than none, and the more, the better. If we don’t have time to make a salad, we can grab from the fridge, like a couple pieces of roasted cauliflower. Though that’s not a one-to-one ratio, it’s enough to start seeing a small benefit, and it’s better than having no veggies before a meal at all.

    If your party is ordering starters, you can order a salad. If no one is ordering starters, you can ask for a vegetable-based side with your main (such as a simple green salad with olive oil and vinegar, steamed green beans, sauteed spinach, or even simmered black, navy, or garbanzo beans), and you can eat it before the rest of your dish. You can even wait until after eating your veggies to eat your main or touch the bread.

    It’s always best to eat whole foods. But when that's not possible, supplements can be a great alternative. That's why I created Anti-Spike Formula. It's designed to reduce the glucose spike of your meal by up to 40%. For a full comparison of all the glucose balancing supplements out there, check out my blog.

    Yes it does, but this isn't important. Recent research has now debunked the importance of calorie counting for better health. It's the type of calories that really count, not the number. I think we can all agree that eating 200 kcal of fries is not the same for our body as eating 200 kcal of broccoli. Steadying our glucose is much more important, and leads to reduced hunger, improved energy, and better overall health and well-being.

    It doesn’t - that’s a myth that’s been debunked.

    IN CONCLUSION...


    I love the veggie starter hack because it tells us to add more food to our meals all while helping keep our glucose steady. It isn't restrictive, and it can make us explore veggies in a fun and original way. The veggies can be prepared any way you like, or simply eaten raw. Adding protein and fat to our veggie starter is a good way of adding taste, especially for kid-friendly starters.

    See this hack in action.

    Get loads of recipes.

    GO TO THE RECIPE CLUB

    Want to learn more?

    VINEGAR GUIDE

    BREAKFAST GUIDE