The Little Green Trees

Broccoli, or little green trees as I call them, have been one of my favorite vegetables since I was little. I was never one of those vegetable adverse kids who hid the healthy food in their napkins.  My sisters always thought I was a freak. I always thought they were weird for not liking this stuff.  I prefer to eat broccoli when it’s cooked because I think it tastes better, but you get more nutrients from it when it’s raw so I try to eat it that way now.

Broccoli is a good source of vitamin C and K as well as calcium. For those people who can’t or choose not to eat/drink dairy products think about eating broccoli.  It’s good for building and maintaining strong bones.  Eating plenty of broccoli will help make up the difference of not having dairy.

Broccoli contains glucoraphanin which helps the skin detoxify and repair itself. So if you get sunburned for example eating broccoli should help speed up your recovery because it’s helping your skin repair the damage.

Broccoli is also a rich source of Fiber. It not only has non soluble fiber, but soluble fiber as well. If you have IBS like I do you might know that soluble fiber is one of the best dietary aids for preventing symptoms from occurring as well as relieving them once they occur.  So broccoli is great to include into the everyday diet.

One really interesting thing that I found was that broccoli can fight birth defects. One cup of broccoli has 94 mcg of folic acid. This is a B-vitamin essential for proper cell division.  If the fetus doesn’t get enough of folic acid its nervous system cells won’t divide right. Folic acid deficiency during pregnancy has been linked to birth defects. So if you are pregnant be sure to eat your broccoli.

If you don’t like to eat broccoli raw try dipping it into something like lite ranch dressing or blue cheese. This will help improve the taste and guarantee you get all the nutrients you can from your broccoli.

If you can’t stand the thought of eating it raw you can steam the broccoli, or cook it. I found a recipe that sounds really delicious from allrecipes.com

Roasted Garlic Lemon Broccoli

This serves about 6 people.  Prep time is ten minutes and cook time is fifteen minutes.

Ingredients

• 2 heads broccoli, separated into florets
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, toss broccoli florets with the extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, pepper and garlic. Spread the broccoli out in an even layer on a baking sheet.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until florets are tender enough to pierce the stems with a fork, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and transfer to a serving platter. Squeeze lemon juice liberally over the broccoli before serving for a refreshing, tangy finish