Vegetable Nutrition Facts
At least five portions a day to get the fruit and vegetable nutrition your body needs as part of a balanced diet.. Don’t forget that potatoes don’t count!
Vegetables offer amazing benefits from helping to losing – maintaining weight to fighting several diseases:
• Vegetables are low in fat.
• They contain high levels of water just like fruits and a great percentage of human body is made up of water.
• Low in salt which means less water retention.
• They are filling and prevent us from eating more of unhealthy foods as they are a good source of dietary fiber.
• There is no harm in eating loads of vegetables as they are low in calories.
• They are full of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.
• A poor diet is easily turned into healthy by having some vegetables daily.
• They can be easily added to your diet. If too hard to prepare or cook the fresh vegetables, get the frozen ones, they are as nutritious and a lot more convenient.
Vegetable Nutrition Facts and Health Benefits:
Different vegetables offer different health benefits but generally speaking:
• Eating vegetables regularly can help you to lose and maintain your ideal weight: low in calories and high in fiber.
• They can give you the vitality and the energy to live an active life due to being highly nutritious.
• Lower blood pressure, reduced cholesterol and reduced risk of heart disease complications.
• Healthier digestive system due to their high fiber nature.
• Increasing fruit and vegetables is the second most important cancer prevention strategy after reducing smoking.
Vegetables and Glycemic Index:
Non-starchy vegetables are usually not tested for GI value as they do not have a great deal of carbohydrate content, so they tend to have close to zero GI values. They cause very little or no spike in blood glucose levels.
Starchy vegetables can have medium to high glycemic index, but the high GI vegetables- potatoes, corn, beets etc. should still be included in moderation in your diet for the nutrition value they offer. Please refer to the glycemic index chart for some vegetables’ GI values.
Vegetable Serving and Cooking Ideas:
• Frozen and canned vegetables are also good for you. They allow you to eat more of vegetables. Think about buying only fresh and having to cut and peel every single time and you have to do it on the day of purchase or in a couple of days, otherwise they will lose nutritional value.
Vegetable nutrition may potentially be slightly less in frozen vegetables but they are kept fresh for a long time and you can use them whenever you want.
• Check the sodium content of frozen and canned vegetables as they may occasionally be higher in salt.
• Some vegetables are “starchy” – corn, potatoes, pumpkin, beets are calorie dense; others are mostly water- broccoli, asparagus, eggplant, green beans. If you’re watching your weight, limit your starchy vegetables to one or two servings per day, and make the remainder of your veggie servings non-starchy.
• Have your sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and vegetables.
• Boiling steals the nutrients that we can benefit from these vegetables and then you drain those nutrients. Steam , stir – fry or have them sauteed . Cook them in as little time as possible not to lose the vegetable nutrition and health benefits.
• Try vegetables in soups, broths and pasta sauces- add chopped carrots, onions, eggplant or spinach to pasta sauce.
Return from Vegetable Nutrition Facts to Glycemic Index home page
Or take me back to Mediterranean Diet page from Vegetable Nutrition
References:
Dh.gov.uk/en/ Publichealth/ Healthimprovement/ FiveADay/ FiveADaygeneralinformation/ DH_4002343.
Hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vegetables-and-fruits/index.html.
Ensminger AH, Ensminger, ME, Kondale JE, Robson JRK. Foods & Nutriton Encyclopedia. Pegus Press, Clovis, California 1983.
Fortin, Francois, Editorial Director. The Visual Foods Encyclopedia. Macmillan, New York 1996.
Wood, Rebecca. The Whole Foods Encyclopedia. New York, NY: Prentice-Hall Press; 1988 1988. PMID:15220.
