What To Do If You Keep Bloating After Eating Salads And Vegetables

This is how it usually goes down: You're in a meeting or an afternoon class. It's just after lunch, right before a case of the sleeps sets in.

Before you left your home in the morning, all you wanted to was to live life like Gwyneth Paltrow, so you packed a kale salad and devoured it.

Then the burbling, rumbling discontent sets in.

Your stomach expands like a Cirque du Soleil tent (tiny acrobats uncomfortably flipping around inside), and you're left trying to discretely stretch the waistband of those Zara culottes you bought on sale, even though they were a size too small.

Ah, vegetables. They're fickle friends, keeping your body thin and glowing, but causing their fair share of nasty side effects: burps, farts and bloating. That's exactly what you want your boss or professor to notice.

But, there is one very crucial step you may be skipping in home cooking that'll make all the difference in eating salads and the like: pre-cooking your veggies.

Don't look at me like that because this whole thing really does make sense.

Sautéing or steaming dense, fibrous vegetables like kale helps break them down so your intestines will have to do less work digesting them.

The issue is raffinose, a kind of sugar that's too tough for your sensitive lady-stomachs to break down. It's found in beans, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and dense greens like kale.

Add to that a great deal of indigestible fiber, and you're really in a pickle. Your bowel movements may be of phenomenal quality (please don't tell me, I really don't want to hear), but there's bound to be gas and stomach pain.

If you're lactose intolerant or have ever eaten too much chocolate chip ice cream in one sitting (any kind of ice cream, really, it's just that chocolate chip is the best), you know the feelings of a digestive system that's been seriously PO'd.

Spoiler alert: It's not the optimal way to spend an afternoon.

Assuming you absolutely loathe the taste of cooked kale and require all your veggies to be in pristine, raw form, pick up a digestive supplement like Beano that's specifically designed for this problem. Hide it in your purse discretely, and blatantly lie about ever taking it.

Or, alternatively, pretend like you're a spy protecting yourself against poison, and start with small doses of raw veggies, toughening up your digestive system incrementally.

Trust me, it'll make the afternoon easier.