The Best Vegetables to Eat Raw for Your Health

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.   

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

Collards look a lot like kale, and they are often used in Southern cooking. They taste more like cabbage than kale, and they also have a chewy texture. They contain only 25 calories in about a half-cup serving.

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.

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 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.