4 Simple Ways to Superpower Your Salad
So follow these four simple steps for making sure you up the antioxidant ante for all your garden greens:
1. Dress for Success
Dress your salad with an olive oil-based dressing. This good fat helps you absorb the nutrients in the salad. Mix the oil with apple or wine vinegars for extra antioxidants.
2. Herb It Up
Lemon balm and marjoram can increase a salad’s antioxidant capacity by 150–200 percent! You can sprinkle cumin, fresh ginger, and thyme on your salad, too.
3. Vary Your Veggies
Artichokes, beetroot, broccoli, garlic, leeks, radishes, spinach, and onions were the chart-topping antioxidant-rich veggies in a recent study — though they’re not everyone’s favorites.
4. Branch Out . . .
. . . with new leaves. Some colorful red chicory or purple cabbage, for example, will add crunch to your salad — as well as extra antioxidants.
Top 10 Veggies List
Make sure the vegetables you eat the most are the most nutritious veggies you can eat.
If you’re a broccoli lover, you’ve picked a winner. From a list of 10 of the most commonly consumed vegetables in the country, broccoli holds the top spot for having the most phytochemicals — compounds everyone’s urged to consume because they protect against chronic diseases. At the bottom of the list? Cucumbers, described by some people as “water you can eat.”
The 9 runners-up to broccoli were spinach, yellow onions, red peppers, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, lettuce, celery, and cucumbers. Red peppers actually beat out broccoli in terms of having the highest levels of antioxidants. The same researchers also have rated 10 of the most popular fruits. Cranberries — with the most phytochemicals and the most antioxidants — topped that list, followed by apples, red grapes, strawberries, peaches, lemons, pears, bananas, oranges, grapefruit, and pineapple.
Food scientists aren’t ranking veggies just to satisfy their curiosity, by the way. They’re contemplating a bioactivity index (BI) for dietary cancer prevention to help grocery shoppers quickly spot the fruits and veggies that have the biggest health benefits.
Check out Seattle, WA.
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] Analyn wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSalad is pretty healthful to start with, to be sure. But not all salads are created equal. (Case in point: iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing. Wimpy!) So follow these four simple steps for making sure you up the antioxidant ante for … [...]
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 am
[...] Original post by Brick ONeil [...]
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
[...] Salad Days by Kyla Myers Brick over at Nutrition Frenzy just published a great article on 4 Simple Ways to Superpower Your Salads. [...]
August 25th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Great list of veggies and fruits! Broccoli is emerging as a powerhouse vegetable. ONLY until the end of 2009 though, when world governments have a deadline to have implemented CODEX, which among other things, will irradiate all of our produce killing those live enzymes and phytochemicals.
Anyone concerned about nutrition in our food should become aware quickly. We only have until 2009!
Thanks for a fantastic, informative blog!
Shelley
August 28th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Thank you for commenting, Shelley. Broccoli is the number one vegetable in the US right now (despite President Bush the first not liking them). A few days ago I posted about irradiation, http://www.nutritionfrenzy.com/fda-ok-to-zap-spinach-lettuce-with-radiation/.