What about Salads?

Warning:

25% of this leaf is made into fresh cut salads. It wants you to believe it has as much nutritional value as its brothers and sisters but it doesn’t.  The only thing it’s good for is weight loss because its high water content equals low calories. But a large portion of what calories it does have comes from sugar. Its main use is for its texture and crispiness. It makes you believe you’re eating healthy when you’re not.

Now don’t get me wrong Iceberg Lettuce has iron, fiber, Vitamin A,C,K and B6 in it but you can get all that and more from Romaine Lettuce.  I used to eat Iceberg Lettuce all the time a few years ago.If I wanted to be healthy I’d go make a salad. It would consist of Iceberg Lettuce, a couple cucumbers, and a ton of ranch dressing.  After I finished eating I’d pat myself on the back for being healthy.  I later found out that I wasn’t helping myself at all this way. Romaine Lettuce was what I should have been using. Also I should have been piling on the other vegetables and not using Ranch dressing.

I’m not the only one who has looked at salad made with Iceberg as a way of being healthy. I had a friend who joined the biggest loser competition on my college campus. She started eating salads made up of Iceberg lettuce, a few vegetables and ranch dressing every day.  She couldn’t understand why she didn’t lose more than 5 pounds.

Iceberg lettuce is tasty and I do love its crunchy texture. It doesn’t hurt to mix it in with Romaine as long as the salad has more Romaine in it. I grew up eating Iceberg so switching was hard for me because it’s what I liked and was used to.  I’m happy though that if I eat salad now I do it right; little dressing, mostly Romaine lettuce, and tons of vegetables.

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

Grapes Galore

Did you know grapes are not only available in red and green but in blue too?  They don’t just have pretty colors though. These guys can fix multiple problems. 

Grapes increase the Nitric Oxide levels in the blood which prevents blood clots and reduces the chance of a heart attack.

Also ripe grape juice is a home remedy for curing migraines. It should be taken in the morning but don’t mix any additional water to it.

When I was six, my family moved into a nice suburban neighborhood. My sisters and I became friends with the two girls across the street from us.  When playing in their backyard we discovered that they had a grape vine that grew an abundance of green grapes.  They smelled divine and were so delicious. My neighbor’s parents would pick them off the vines because the bees loved the smell too and we didn’t like bees. But it was us kids that devoured them.  

            Merriya, the older of the two girls, taught us how to eat them. I mean sure you could throw them in your mouth and eat them whole if you wanted but her way was more fun.  What we did was pinch the grape between our fingers and put the tip to our mouths. We’d squeeze the grapes from the bottom and suck from the top until the middle popped into our mouths.  The middle was amazing. I’m pretty sure we didn’t bother with the skin, just tossed it.

Light and white grape juice replenishes the iron content that is present in the body and will help prevent fatigue.  Be careful though not to use the dark grape juice for this purpose because the dark grape juice does not replenish iron, but can actually decrease it.

Grapes are good for providing release during constipation. They are considered a laxative food because they have organic acid, sugar and cellulose.

If you ever get the chance to have grapes right off the vines don’t hesitate. They are really tasty and very memorable.