When most people think about eating healthy, they picture a plate piled high with salad greens. But despite the abundance of vegetables in grocery stores, many of the most nutrient-dense options rarely make it into everyday meals.

People tend to stick to the same few: lettuce, carrots, broccoli, maybe some spinach, while skipping vegetables that pack unique health benefits. That’s why I encourage my patients to go beyond the basics. By adding more of the overlooked super-veggies to your meals, you can support gut health, longevity and overall vitality.

In fact, they’re one of the most powerful tools for repairing and protecting your body at the cellular level. Here are five healthiest yet underrated vegetables we don’t eat enough of.

Jerusalem artichokes may not look appealing, but they’re a powerhouse for gut health. They’re one of the richest natural sources of inulin, a prebiotic fiber that feeds beneficial gut bacteria.

When those bacteria thrive, they produce compounds like butyrate, which supports the gut lining and helps regulate inflammation. A healthier microbiome is linked to better digestion, immune function and even mood regulation.

Slimy? Maybe. Underrated? Absolutely. Okra is loaded with polyphenols, fiber and compounds that may help lower blood sugar. I often highlight okra for its ability to “trap” lectins, making it easier for your gut to process potentially harmful compounds in other foods.

That means okra can help protect your gut barrier and ease digestive stress, all while providing antioxidant protection to your cells. And there’s plenty of ways to cook it, like roasting it on high heat, that eliminates the goo while retaining benefits.

This vibrant purplish-red vegetable often gets mistaken for red cabbage, but it’s actually a type of chicory. And yes, it’s bitter, but that’s exactly why I recommend it. Bitter vegetables stimulate digestion, help reduce sugar cravings, and are loaded with polyphenols that fight oxidative stress.

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Radicchio also contains antioxidants that protect your mitochondria (your cells’ energy factories), while supporting blood sugar balance and cardiovascular health. 

Most people use celery stalks and ignore the knobby root, but celeriac is a hidden gem. It’s lower in carbohydrates than potatoes, high in fiber and a good source of vitamin K and essential minerals.

Celeriac works especially well as a substitute for higher-starch vegetables. Mashed, roasted or baked, it delivers comfort-food texture with a gentler impact on blood sugar.

Also known as the Mexican yam bean, jicama is a crisp, refreshing root vegetable that’s low in sugar but high in fiber — particularly inulin, which supports gut health.

Jicama also provides vitamin C, minerals and hydration, making it an excellent alternative to processed snacks. Its mild flavor and crunch make it easy to add to salads, slaws or vegetable platters.

Try jicama sticks with guacamole (check out my tomato-free guac recipe). Grate it for a slaw, or add it thinly sliced to salads for a refreshing crunch. And, finally, one of my favorite ways to eat it: jicama fries!

Of course, you should check with your physician before making any major changes to your diet. Make it a goal to eat at least one new vegetable a week. It turns grocery shopping into a fun scavenger hunt. And who knows? You may really like how they taste or, more importantly, like how you feel eating them!

Dr. Steven Gundry, MD, is a former cardiac surgeon, founder of GundryMD, and author of the bestselling books ”The Gut-Brain Paradox″ and ”The Plant Paradox.” For over 20 years, his research has focused on the microbiome’s role in chronic disease and longevity. He received his degrees from Yale University and the Medical College of Georgia, and completed his surgical residency at the University of Michigan. Follow him on Instagram @drstevengundry.

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Mikayla McGhee is a self-proclaimed military brat. Both of her parents are in the U.S. Navy — her mom served 30 years, and her dad is still on active duty after 40 years.

“My life was moving around from military base to military base,” the 29-year-old American tells CNBC Make It.

McGhee spent most of her life living abroad in Japan, which, she says, led her to realize she wanted to make a life for herself outside of the United States.

“I was always working towards freedom, so I never knew exactly what I was going to do but I knew I wanted the freedom to be able to live wherever I wanted to and travel whenever I wanted to,” she says.

“Once you’ve experienced growing up abroad and you’re exposed to that, you continue to search for it. So moving back to the States after living in Japan, I always knew I wanted to live outside of the U.S. I just didn’t know how.”

In 2020, McGhee, who was living in Atlanta, Georgia, visited her parents in Bahrain, which is where her dad was stationed at the time. The country is located in the Persian Gulf and is home to the Naval Support Activity Bahrain, a U.S. military base.

Before visiting the island for the first time, McGhee admits she had preconceived notions and didn’t actually know what to expect. But was pleasantly surprised, she says.

“The culture shock was that, actually, things were better, not worse. Don’t just believe what you’re told or what you see in the media because it’s nothing like that at all,” she says.

“It’s so calm. It’s so peaceful. There was never a time where I didn’t feel like I fit in or I was standing out as an expat. Every culture shock was a positive one.”

McGhee stayed for three months and says she fell in love with the country.

“I met so many great people. I didn’t want to go home, and as soon as I got home, I started planning how I was going to move because I knew I had to leave,” she says.

That first trip to Bahrain is what led McGhee to make the full-time move over in December 2022. She lived in her parents’ three-bedroom home for six months before moving out on her own.

Now, McGhee lives near the capital of Bahrain, Manama, in a three-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom home with a pool and one-car garage that rents for $2,200 USD a month.

She says she and her partner split expenses, though he pays the majority, while most of her money goes to savings and to the trips the couple takes together.

McGhee’s expenses also include groceries, which range from 25 to 60 BHD or $66 to $158 USD multiple times a week, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. She also says she has the following bills:

• Nails: 20 BHD or $53
• Hair: up to 30 BHD or $79
• Cellphone: $150 USD
• Storage unit in Atlanta: $125 a month

McGhee works as a senior performance marketing manager at an IT company and earns $140,000 a year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

She works Eastern Standard Time, and her day usually starts at 5 to 6 p.m. local time. She ends her day between midnight and 1 a.m. local time.

“That was my biggest thing when looking for a new role. It was finding a place that would let me live anywhere and gave me the flexibility to work across time zones,” she says.

Since McGhee earns her salary in USD, she still pays U.S. taxes. McGhee also uses the health insurance offered by her company, which still allows her access to Bahrain’s healthcare system.

When McGhee is free during the day she likes to work out, shop for groceries, and create content. She shares a lot of her life in Bahrain on TikTok to her over 64,000 followers.

“It is my duty to make sure that Americans know how great this country is,” McGhee says.

McGhee says she doesn’t know if she will stay in Bahrain long-term, but she does know she wants to buy property around the country as real estate investments and have a permanent place for herself there, too.

“My life is 10 times better here. My happiness has skyrocketed. Even the weather alone has increased my mood,” she says.

“I will always want to have something that I can come back to, that I could call my home. Bahrain felt like home from the day I got here, so in order for me to leave, another place would need to do the same.”

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Gone are the days of spending hours searching for the answer to a question, having to leave the house to meet someone new or even getting up to change the temperature in your home.

But technologically enabled convenience comes at a cost, says Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke: Now, most people tend to dislike activities that require effort even more than they used to. Working out or learning a new skill from scratch can feel more like a chore than something to enjoy. But you can train your brain to do — and like — these types of challenges, Lembke said on Monday’s episode of the “Diary Of A CEO” podcast.

Her advice: Make a granular and intentional plan for tackling your activity before you actually do it.

“If we wait till that moment to decide whether or not to do something that’s hard, we almost always choose not to do it,” said Lembke, author of “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” a New York Times bestseller. “But if we make a plan in advance, let’s say the day before that, ‘Tomorrow I’m going to get up at this time. I’m going to get my stuff together and I’m going to go to the gym,’ we’re much more likely to engage in that activity.”

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You likely already do this in other aspects of your life, like planning dinner for the week ahead of time or picking out your work clothes the night before, so you don’t run late. Preparation helps us “put the brakes on our short-term desires and project ourselves into the future to achieve our long-term desires,” Lembke said.

Having an accountability buddy can help: People tend to accomplish more when they have a partner, or group of partners, on a similar path. In couples, if one partner makes a healthier change, the other is likely to make the same positive change, found a 2015 study from University College London researchers. 

Connecting friendship or socialization to your goals, like attending a workout class or a study group, “makes it much easier to do these difficult things,” said Lembke.

Financial psychologist Charles Chaffin, co-founder of the Financial Psychology Institute and a professor at Iowa State University, agrees with the buddy system approach, he told CNBC Make It on Dec. 23.

“Dry January is a great example,” Chaffin said. “If you do dry January with the people you go out drinking with, your chances of actually being successful go way up because you’re going through that with someone. You’re policing each other. You’re encouraging each other. Those are all really, really good things.”

The path to achieving the hard thing — whatever that may be for you — likely won’t be enjoyable at first, Lembke noted. She used the metaphor of a balance scale, with pleasure on one side and pain on the other side. By getting up early and dedicating two hours to an uninterrupted study session, for example, you’re intentionally adding weight to the “pain” side of your scale. 

A quick social media break would add some temporary weight to the “pleasure” side of the scale, but by sticking with your goal and pushing past the discomfort, you’ll get a longer-lasting boost of dopamine, she said.

If you slip up on your journey to meeting a goal, don’t be too hard on yourself, Lembke added. At the beginning of the year, people tend to set concrete, unattainable goals and then feel a lot of shame when they don’t strictly adhere to them.

Maybe you didn’t completely cut out sugar like you’d hoped, for example, but at least you ate more whole foods and upped your water intake. Progress is still progress, even if it isn’t perfect.

“For some, a better approach is sort of self-compassion and a goal of moderation,” said Lembke.

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The Trump administration announced new dietary guidelines on Wednesday, including an inverted food pyramid that places red meat and whole-fat dairy at the top alongside fruits and vegetables.

“We are ending the war on saturated fats,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a press conference at the White House this week. “My message is clear. Eat real food.”

The new guidelines encourage research-backed practices like eating more whole foods including fruits, vegetables and whole grains, as well as reducing intake of highly processed foods. But it also offers different guidance than what health experts say about eating large amounts of red meat, whole milk and cheese.

A high intake of red meats and processed meats has been associated with a higher risk of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and premature death, Dr. Frank B. Hu, chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a Harvard Health Publishing article in 2020.

Having too much saturated fat in your diet can lead to spikes in your cholesterol levels and increase your chances of heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association. Full-fat dairy tends to be high in saturated fat.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans is updated every five years. It is then “used to formulate guidance for school lunch requirements, hospitals. Other institutions use them to determine what their meals and other services [are],” said Dr. Teresa Fung, a registered dietitian and adjunct professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, during a press call held by the school on Thursday.

Here’s what health experts say about the new guidelines, plus their advice for how consumers should structure their diets moving forward.

Fung and Dr. Deirdre Kay Tobias, an obesity and nutritional epidemiologist affiliated with Harvard, were members of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory committee that researched scientific evidence to formulate the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Report.

“Most of the committee’s recommendations were ignored,” Cristina Palacios, professor and chair of the Department of Dietetics & Nutrition at Florida International University who also served on the committee, wrote this week in an article for The Conversation.

Fung and Tobias adamantly encourage eating various sources of protein, including plant-based proteins, for a well-rounded diet. If people only eat animal-based proteins like beef and dairy, their concern is that they will lack certain nutrients they need and up their intake of saturated fat.

“Having protein, the food, only come from beef every day, or chicken or just eggs, really runs the risk of creating an overall pattern very low in fiber, because there’s no fiber in those foods [or] key nutrients and phytochemicals and minerals that are found in plants,” Tobias said during Harvard’s press briefing.

“If folks were to follow that and have more protein coming from meat sources, it really puts them at risk of exceeding the limit for saturated fat.”

The 2025 DGA suggests keeping intake of saturated fat below 10% of daily calories, but Tobias explained that that could be difficult if people are getting all of their protein from red meats and whole-fat dairy.

“It’s unclear what health benefits are being promoted by that sort of emphasis to swap to full-fat milk or other dairy,” Tobias said.

“That same glass of milk would have all of the protein and nutrients, but more saturated fat and more calories” than low-fat milk, she added.

Fung and Tobias shared a few simple tips for eating healthier that the research they reviewed supports. Here are some staples:

1. Focus on whole foods
2. Eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables
3. Vary your protein sources to include both animal-based and plant-based proteins. A strictly plant-based diet is also ok. “Shift the protein intake a little bit more evenly throughout the course of the day, and not really the quantity of protein that is being consumed,” Fung said.
4. Lower added sugar intake (less than 150 calories for men, less than 100 calories for women daily)
5. Maintain low sodium intake (less than 2,300 mg a day)
6. Reduce ultra-processed foods
7. Stick to whole grains

You can also use the 2020 DGA or the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Report as references, they suggest.

“I don’t think it should be so hard to know what’s healthy and what to eat. It’s also not a public debate. It’s science,” Tobias said. “What’s healthy and what’s not, the core of that has not changed.”

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No parent is perfect — and that’s for the best, according to child psychologist Becky Kennedy.

When parents make mistakes, and then make an effort to repair those missteps, they teach their kids important lessons about maturity and bonding, Kennedy told comedian Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” podcast in a Dec. 4 episode. Those lessons can help kids maintain happy and healthy relationships going forward, she said.

“We learn the most in our relationships when people take responsibility for their behavior, when people repair,” said Kennedy, a Columbia University-trained child psychologist, host of the parenting podcast “Good Inside” and a mother of three children herself. “I wouldn’t want to deprive my kids of that opportunity, and that’s such [an important] part of healthy relationships.”

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Repairing a mistake or a rift is the best way to get closer to another person, Kennedy said, calling it “the ultimate relationship strategy.” In parenting, those repairs can strengthen the parent-child bond and give your child a model for how to own up to their own mistakes, said Kennedy. They can teach kids that it’s natural to make mistakes, and how you respond to them matters.

Other parenting experts broadly agree: Parents should model to their children how to bounce back from a mistake by apologizing and then moving on. Learning that mistakes are inevitable rather than a sign of inherent flaws can help your kids avoid the stress of perfectionism, which can lead to long-term mental health issues like anxiety and low self-esteem, according to developmental psychologist Aliza Pressman.

“If our kids didn’t see [our mistakes], they would not have much hope that they get to make mistakes and grow and still be loved and be worthy,” Pressman told “The Mel Robbins Podcast” in a July 28 episode.

For her part, Kennedy said that she’s far from a perfect parent, admitting to Noah that there have been “innumerable” times where her kids threw tantrums — and all of the lessons she teaches about leading with empathy went out the window.

“I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again, and I mean it with such honesty that my kids don’t have some Dr. Becky[-type] person as a mom,” she said. She recalled an instance where one of her kids whined about what she’d cooked for dinner, and she lost her temper and yelled at the child. You shouldn’t do that, of course, she noted — but if you do, don’t be paralyzed by the shame or guilt of losing your cool.

“Every parent does that,” said Kennedy. “There’s not one parent who has not been in that situation.”

As for why you need to own up to your behavior: Consider “what happens for a kid when the person they depend on for safety becomes the person who scares them,” Kennedy said. It’s “a very frenetic experience” that can leave your child overwhelmed as they try to cope through a mixture of “self-doubt and self-blame.”

Instead of blaming your child for the frustration that caused you to lash out, say something like, “I’m sorry I yelled,” said Kennedy. “And this line really matters: ‘It’s never your fault when I yell. I’m working on staying calmer, even when I’m frustrated. I love you.’”

The apology is just a first step for parents who are prone to outbursts, Kennedy added. If that’s the case, she recommended working on catching yourself before you lose your cool by taking the time to identify what triggers your frustration. That way, you can try to take a beat and calm down with a deep breath rather than resorting to yelling, she said.

“You can’t help your kid if you’re not doing some type of internal work,” said Kennedy.

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