Whether you prefer to toss them in a salad or juice them into a green smoothie, leafy green veggies have many health benefits you just can’t afford to miss out on. In this article, we look at the best vegetables to eat for your health and how healthy greens are.
What Are Some Of The Nutritious Greens?
When it comes to greens, there are surprisingly many different types you can choose from. We list a few of the most nutritious vegetables that you can eat raw or just add to your recipes:
Kale
Kale has everything you need in greens; it is a powerhouse of nutrition. It has lots of vitamins C, A, and K, calcium, potassium, and folate. Depending on the variety of vegetables you choose, kale can be cream-colored or blackish. You can use kale to substitute bread and buns in burgers and sandwiches if you want to make a low-carb and low-calorie meal.
Collards
Turnip Greens
These are the tops of turnips, and they are just as good as the vegetable itself. Like collard greens, turnip greens are also commonly used in Southern cooking. They don’t have to be cooked as much to have flavor because they are tenderer than other types of greens.
Swiss Chard
Swiss chard has veins, red stalks, and stems on the leaves. They taste a lot like beets. If you like to sauté, these are the best greens to use. Swiss chard can bind to calcium, so it doesn’t cause kidney stones. It has only about 15 calories per half-cup serving.
Spinach
Per half-cup serving, spinach has only about 20 calories. It has plenty of vitamin C and vitamin A which attribute to better health. It also is high in folate. Unlike other vegetables, spinach is better for you cooked than raw because if heated, its oxalate content is reduced.
Mustard Greens
They look similar to collard greens and turnip leaves, and they are also a green Southern recipe. Mustard greens come in both green and red varieties. These greens give off a mustard-like smell like when cooking. To tone them down, add lemon or vinegar, to provide acidity.
Broccoli
There are lots of wonders where broccoli falls in the greens category, well yes! Broccoli is green. It high in vitamin A and vitamin C and contains 25 calories per serving. It is great in stir-fries because it adds crunchiness. You can eat broccoli raw, as a snack with low-fat dip or in salads. Broccoli also goes great with pasta, in soups, and casseroles.
Romaine Lettuce
This a lettuce that comes in red and green leaves. Romaine lettuce is perfect for salads, sandwiches, and smoothies and even juicing. Nutritionally, it is high in folate as well as vitamin A. Compared to leafy lettuce which is softer. Romaine is crunchy. The darker leaves have more nutritional value in them than lighter leaves. It has about ten calories in one cup serving.
Cabbage
Cabbage is a pale vegetable of the cruciferous type. It contains cancer-fighting agents, and it’s also has lots of vitamin C. It comes in either green or red cabbage. Cabbage can be cooked, stir-fried, or made into a shredded Coleslaw. A half-cup serving only has 15 calories.
Iceberg Lettuce
This kind of lettuce contains lots of water which makes it bland tasting. It makes you feel full fast which makes it ideal for weight loss. You can use it in salads and sandwiches. Compared to other greens it contains less nutrition. If you are working your way towards eating healthier greens, iceberg lettuce could be a great starter. Iceberg Lettuce has no calories and can be consumed generously.
Benefits Of Eating Green
1. Healthier Aging
Taking one cup of raw greens will give you the daily requirement of Vitamin K. Greens contain vitamin K, which helps clot blood. Having too little vitamin K in the diet will predispose your to heart disease, kidney calcification, fragile bones, and arterial plaques. The best vitamin K veggies are kale, dandelion greens and Swiss chard.
2. Keeps Down Cholesterol
By eating greens, especially kale and mustard greens, your body binds bile acids in the fiber of these types of greens. The bile then exits the body instead of going into the bloodstream, hence keeps down the cholesterol.
3. Help Your Vision
Vegetables Swiss chard, mustard greens, dandelion greens, and kale contain many types of lutein and zeaxanthin, which help filter out high-energy light. High energy light can damage your eyes. Greens also contribute to reducing the chances of getting cataracts because they are fighting glare.
4. Fuels The Body
Some vegetables help convert carbohydrates into glucose which is then used as a fuel to energize the body. If you take one cup of escarole raw, you will get a tenth of what you require of pantothenic acid, which is vitamin B. You always need to eat B vitamins every day because any excess will just exit the body because they are water-soluble.
5. Improve Bone Health
Some vegetables have a bitter taste because they are high in calcium, which is good for your bones. Even though you can’t get enough calcium just by eating greens, but they can help. For instance, about a 1/2 cup of dandelion greens, contains 78 milligrams of calcium.
6. Prevent Colon Cancer
The vegetables in the Brassica family that is mustard greens, kale, broccoli, and cabbage, help to lower the risk of cancer. The more you eat vegetables, the lower your risk of getting colon cancer.