Benefits Of Consuming Green Fruits And Vegetables

We have heard from our parents and elders that eating green vegetables is good for our health and it's true. Green fruits and vegetables get their colour from a pigment named chlorophyll. Chlorophyll has the powerful ability to regenerate your bodies at the molecular and cellular levels and is known to cleanse the body. It helps in fighting infection and promotes the health of the digestive, immune, and circulatory systems.

Research shows that green foods are good sources of phytonutrients, fibre and water that can revitalize your health. There are many green fruits and vegetables.

List Of Green Fruits

• Avocados
• Green apples
• Green grapes
• Green pears
• Honeydew melons
• Kiwifruits
• Limes
• Green mangoes
• Custard apples
• Guavas
• Gooseberries
• Starfruits
• Greengage plums
• Green olives

List Of Green Vegetables

• Arugula
• Bok choy
• Broccoli
• Collard green
• Broccolini
• Broccoli Rabe
• Lettuce
• Endive
• Kale
• Spinach
• Mustard green
• Romaine lettuce
• Watercress
• Swiss chard
• Turnip green
• Cabbage
• Beet green
• Green bean
• Pea
• Lady's finger
• Artichoke
• Celery
• Coriander, parsley, mint, and celery leaves
• Asparagus
• Brussels sprout
• Green capsicum
• Green chilli
• Zucchini
• Cucumber
• Spring onion

Why Should You Be Eating More Green Fruits And Vegetables?

Green fruits and vegetables contain chlorophyll, fibre, lutein, zeaxanthin, calcium, folate, vitamin C, and beta carotene. The nutrients found in these vegetables reduce the risk of cancer, lower blood pressure, lower bad cholesterol levels, help in better digestion of food, support retinal health and vision, fight harmful free-radicals, and boost the immune system.

These are the benefits of eating green vegetables and fruits.

  

1. Lowers bad cholesterol

Cholesterol build-up in the walls of the arteries can lead to heart attack and stroke. To maintain your cholesterol levels, increase the consumption of green foods like avocados, olives, green peas, grapes, etc., as they are known to contain monounsaturated fatty acids and fibre that aid in lowering cholesterol.

  

2. Prevents cancer

Many noted studies have revealed that a diet rich in green vegetables and fruits can help ward off cancer. They contain phytonutrients like antioxidants, carotenoids and flavonoids that help in fighting against stomach cancer, colon cancer, skin cancer and breast cancer. These phytonutrients are found in avocados, olives, green apples, spinach, kale, etc.

  

3. Improves eye health

Consuming green leafy vegetables helps in keeping your eyes healthy. Spinach, kale, kiwifruits, grapes and zucchini contain essential carotenoids called lutein and zeaxanthin. These compounds act as a protective shield for the macula and prevent damage from the blue light. It also prevents cataracts as well.

  

4. Good for digestive health

Your body helps to break down food into nutrients through digestion which leads to energy generation, growth and cellular repair. To ensure the better functioning of the digestive system, consume high fibre foods such as artichokes, apples, broccoli, green beans, peas and turnip greens. Fibre absorbs additional water in the intestines, promotes healthy gut bacteria and eases the bowel movement.

  

5. Improves metabolism

A boost in metabolism will help you lose weight. Green chilli pepper, avocado, spinach are some of the green foods that improve the metabolic activity. The most essential nutrient for metabolism functioning is vitamin B.

  

6. Promotes brain function

Dark green leafy vegetables and fruits such as broccoli, green beans, Brussels sprouts, avocados, asparagus, spinach, kale are all rich in folate also known as vitamin B9. Folate is known to prevent age-related cognitive decline, improve concentration and the overall brain function.

Are You Eating These Foods The Wrong Way?

The way you consume or prepare certain fruits and vegetables can actually make or break the health benefits they provide. You could be slicing, dicing, boiling or cooking foods the wrong way which might end up reducing the nutritional value of the foods. In this article, we will discuss the foods that are eaten the wrong way.

Reduction of nutritional value can happen either by peeling a fruit which you aren't supposed to, by boiling a veggie instead steaming it, char-boiling meat and seafood or slicing a fruit or vegetable into small pieces.

Preserving nutrients in foods is crucial as it will help regulate metabolic processes such as digestion and the absorption of nutrients. This decreases nutritional inadequacies in the body.

So, why should you starve your body of nutrients when you can reap the benefits of every vitamin and mineral that each food has to offer? Read here to know the foods that are eaten the wrong way.

  

1. Broccoli

Boiling broccoli reduces the amount of vitamin C by 22 to 34 per cent and all the nutrients leach into the water which is thrown away afterwards. So, your body isn't getting the nutrients. The best way to retain nutrients in broccoli is to steam, pressure cook, microwave and stir-fry them which will retain 90 per cent of the vitamin C and other nutrients.

  

2. Potato

Cutting the potatoes into very small pieces before boiling will wash away all the nutrients and naturally, it starts losing its flavour. Cut the potatoes into larger cubes with its skin and boil it for 15 to 20 minutes. The potato skin adds fibre and nutrients and also retains the nutrients in the flesh of the potato.
Make sure that you wash the potatoes properly before boiling.

  

3. Flaxseed

Flaxseeds have heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, lignans that possess cancer-fighting properties and rich fibre content. If you are eating whole flaxseeds, you are eating them wrong as the body will not be able to break down the flaxseeds thus you won't get enough nutrients from them.

The best way to eat them is to grind them into your smoothies and sprinkle them in your salads.

  

4. Cabbage

The best way to eat cabbage is by steaming it. In this way, the nutrients are not lost by leaching. Steaming cabbage doesn't involve adding fat and extra calories in the form of vegetable oil or butter which makes it one of the healthiest ways to consume cabbage.

But, ensure that you don't overboil the cabbage as it tastes bitter because of the sulfurous compounds that are drawn into the water.

  

5. Onions

In salads, burger or a sandwich, raw onions are served to add crunchiness. During cooking, onions are sautéed which is not an entirely bad thing to do. However, onions are much more active in their raw state than cooked form because it contains a variety of organic sulphur compounds that have the most health benefits. These compounds help to break down fat deposits and speed up your metabolism.

  

6. Strawberries

Who doesn't love eating the juicy red strawberries? The correct way to eat strawberries is to eat them whole as they contain 8 to 12 per cent more of vitamin C. Slicing strawberries reduces the amount of vitamin C in them as it sensitive to light and oxygen and tends to break down.

  

7. Apples

If you are consuming apples in a sauce form or peeled form, you are missing on some of the important nutrients. Apple skin is rich in nutrients like fibre and antioxidants and if you peel the skin, you may miss out on the health benefits that it provides which includes fullness, controlling cholesterol and reducing inflammation.

  

8. Meat And Seafood

Char-boiling processed meat and seafood at a high temperature is the wrong way to consume them because the proteins in the meat change when it's cooked under high temperature. Instead, cook your meat at a lower temperature to reduce the production of heterocyclic amines which are carcinogenic compounds.

  

9. Nuts

Consuming raw nuts isn't the correct way to have them. Because they contain anti-nutrients like lectins and phytic acid that prevent them from being properly digested in the stomach. This decreases the absorption of nutrients. So, to decrease the anti-nutrients, soak nuts before consuming them. Soak walnuts and peanuts for 12 hours and almonds and cashew nuts for six to seven hours.

  

10. Bananas

Are you eating bananas the wrong way? Most of us eat plain bananas without pairing them up with any food. But, nutritionists say that eating bananas with some kind of fats like almond butter or peanut butter will help metabolize the fruit's high sugar content.

  

11. Spinach

Steam spinach leaves instead of having them raw as steaming will decrease the oxalic acid which hinders absorption of nutrients and increases the bioavailability of vitamin A, vitamin E, fibre, zinc, calcium, protein and iron.

What is Food Synergy?

There are thousands of phytochemicals that will never make it onto the side of a cereal box but may play a role in reducing the risk of chronic diseases—and those are just the ones we know about. Whole plant foods have consistently been found to be protective, so it’s reasonable for scientists to try to find the “magic bullet” active ingredient that can be sold in a pill, but “[p]ills or tablets simply cannot mimic this balanced natural combination of phytochemicals present in fruits and vegetables.” When isolated out, the compound may lose its activity or behave differently. The antioxidant and anticancer activities of plant foods are thought to derive from the “additive and synergistic effects of phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables,” meaning the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. This helps explain why a pill can’t replace the complex combination of phytochemicals present in whole plant foods.

As T. Colin Campbell has pointed out, more than a hundred trials “overwhelmingly showno long-term benefit for vitamin supplements, along with worrisome findings that certain vitamins may even increase disease occurrence for diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.” Supplementation with fish oil, for example, appears useless or, even worse, “posing increased risk for diabetes,” yet the science doesn’t seem to matter. People continue to buy them. “The public desire for quick fixes through pills…is overwhelming, especially when money can be made.” 

Each plant has thousands of different phytochemicals, as well as entirely different phytonutrient profiles. So, there may be synergistic effects when eating different foods together, too. Eating beta-carotene in carrot form is more beneficial than in pill form. because of all the other compounds in the carrot that may synergize with the beta-carotene. Well, when we dip that carrot in hummus, we suddenly have the thousands of carrot compounds mixing with the thousands of chickpea compounds. So what happens if we mix different fruits with different vegetables or different beans?

Combining foods across different categories increased the likelihood of synergy. For example, a study showed the antioxidant powers of raspberries and adzuki beans. If there were a strictly additive effect, the expected combined antioxidant power would simply be that of the raspberries plus that of the adzuki beans. However, the observed combined antioxidant power was actually greater than the sum of one plus the other.

What about cancer-fighting effects? The study was repeated, but, this time, different combinations of food were dripped on breast cancer cells growing in a petri dish. For some foods, the same synergistic effects were found. Grapes, for example, can suppress the growth of breast cancer cells about 30 percent, but onions worked even better, cutting breast cancer cell growth in half. One would assume that if we added half the grapes with half the onion, we’d get a result somewhere in the middle between the two. Instead, the researchers found that cancer cell growth was suppressed by up to 70 percent with that combination. The whole plus the whole was greater than the sum of the whole parts.

Given these findings, did the researchers recommend people eat a variety of foods? Perhaps adding some raisins along with chopped red onions to our next salad? Where’s the money in that? No, the reason the researchers were investigating the different types of interactions was “to identify mixtures that hold synergistic interactions that can ultimately lead to the development of functional foods”—maybe something like grape-flavored Funyuns.

7 Creative Ways to Preserve & Enjoy Homegrown Herbs

You had a great year in your herb patch and now you have a lush crop of herbs waiting to be harvested. Don’t know where to start? Check out some of the ideas below on how to use and preserve your herbs so you can enjoy your harvest all winter.

1. FREEZING

You can freeze herbs in a few different ways. One of the easiest ways is to simply chop up your fresh herbs, pack them into freezer bags and put the bags directly in your freezer. When you’re packing them, make sure you squeeze out as much air as possible to prevent oxidation and freezer burn. Also, use small freezer bags if you’ll only need small amounts at a time for cooking.

Another convenient option is to freeze your herbs in ice cube trays with water. You can either blend your herbs with water in a food processor or blender, then put the mix into ice cube trays. You can also chop fresh herbs, pack them into ice cube trays, then fill the remaining space in the trays with water. Once the trays are frozen, take out the cubes and store them in bags to save freezer space.

2. HERBED OIL AND BUTTER

Instead of using water as a base in your ice cube trays, you can also combine fresh herbs with olive or coconut oil. You can use herbed oil cubes directly in dishes. You can also use them as a vegan herbed butter substitute by taking the frozen cubes and spreading them on bread while the oil is still solid.

If you’d like to make a traditional herbed butter, you can mix freshly chopped herbs with some softened butter, roll the butter into a log, wrap it in greaseproof paper, then twist the ends closed. Herbed butter will last in the fridge for about two weeks and in the freezer for up to six months. 

3. DRYING

Herbs can be easily air dried or dried in a dehydrator. To air dry, it’s easiest to hang your herbs in small bunches in a warm, well-ventilated area. The key is to give them lots of space and air movement to prevent any mildew from starting. Keeping your herbs indoors or under cover will prevent any dew or rain from reaching them.

Using a dehydrator can speed up the process. You can buy a few different types of commercial dehydrators, or you can try making a dehydrator of your own. Whichever type of dehydrator you try, always keep it at a low heat when drying herbs. Too high of a heat can detract from their flavor.

To store dried herbs, make sure whatever container you use is completely air tight. If air can leak in, so can humidity, which can spoil your herbs.

4. PESTO

Pesto is traditionally made with basil, but many other herbs can also make a delicious pesto. And prepared pesto can be easily frozen in jars for storage. The National Center for Home Food Preservation does not recommend canning pesto as it’s typically prepared with raw, fresh herbs in oil, which would not can safely.

5. HERB-INFUSED VINEGAR AND OIL

Making your own herb-infused vinegar and oil is not as difficult as it may sound. And both are extremely tasty additions to salads, sauces, dips or main dishes.

What’s Cooking America has excellent guidelines on how to make your own herbed vinegar. It can last from 6 to 8 months when stored properly.

Herbed oil is not as acidic as vinegar and does not last as long. Homemade herbed oils should be used within two months if kept in the fridge, or up to six months if frozen. 

6. FERMENTED HERBS

You may have tried fermenting your own sauerkraut or dill pickles, but did you know you can also ferment fresh herbs? It can be a tasty way to preserve your herbs and get beneficial probiotics while you’re at it. You can use almost any herb and experiment with different blends. Joybilee Farm has detailed instructions on how to ferment your own herbs. You can keep your ferments in the fridge for up to 6 months.

7. SALT PRESERVING

A traditional method for preserving fresh foods is to mix them with salt. This can also be done with fresh herbs. It works particularly well with soft, leafy herbs that often lose some flavor when dried, such as cilantro, basil, parsley or chives.