You can beat vegetable and bean boredom by trying the dishes offered at ethnic restaurants that don’t look like your average fare. Consider getting your chickpeas and eggplant in Mediterranean hummus and baba-ganoush dips. Their smooth consistency is very different from that of the whole foods. Mulligatawny, an Indian soup, blends various vegetables, legumes, and sometimes chicken into a creamy, flavorful mix.

Japanese seaweed salad is a chewy, often multicolored appetizer sometimes served with ginger dressing. Ratatouille is a French stew of chopped eggplant, tomato, and zucchini.

There’s another benefit to getting your vegetables global-style: It exposes you to different spices, such as turmeric and cayenne pepper, that might have health benefits of their own.