Firstly, Happy (belated) St. Patrick’s Day to all of you Irish folks out there! In honor of you, this week’s food post is all about Getting More Green – as in green, leafy vegetables, one of our Super Foods – into our diets.
The USDA categorizes the following as dark green leafy vegetables:
- bok choy
- broccoli
- collard greens
- dark green leafy lettuce
- kale
- mesclun
- mustard greens
- romaine lettuce
- spinach
- turnip greens
- watercress
Dark leafy greens are packed with important nutrients including vitamins C, A, K, and E, fiber, folate, calcium, magnesium and potassium. They also contain carotene and lutein both of which promote eye health and the prevention of cataracts. And there is research that suggests that long-term exposure to carotene, beginning in mid-life, may provide significant benefits to cognition that ultimately reduce the risk of dementia. Have I sold you yet?
When you choose your greens, it’s important to note that some nutritional value can be lost due to environmental factors (temperature, humidity, time from farm to plate, etc.) as well as cooking methods, so variety in the type of vegetable and preparation is important. So just try a lot of different greens raw, cooked, steamed, etc. the nutritional benefits are countless!
Here are a couple of easy ideas for getting more greens into your diet:
– Add a simple side salad of romaine lettuce and mesclun greens to your dinner menu
– Replace the usual lettuce with baby spinach leaves on your lunchtime sandwich
– Add some chopped bok choy to your stir fried veggies with brown rice
– Add chopped Tuscan kale, Swiss chard or escarole to a homemade minestrone or vegetable soup.
And if you really want to be daring, try THIS suggestion for homemade kale chips (found at AllRecipes.com) from Lexi, our marketing intern. She made them this week and raved about how fast they were to make in addition to the fact that they were a perfect healthy snack to go on with a tall green beer!