Lettuce Nutrition
Lettuce nutrition is important to research before you build your diet around this healthy vegetable. Lettuce was originally cultivated about twenty-five hundred years ago. The Romans used to grow many different types of lettuce, and later it would become popular in Europe and Asia. An 1885 report in the United States listed more than eighty-seven different types of lettuce.
Lettuce promotes liver health and aids in your digestion. It can be used to reduce the risk of cataracts, stroke and heart disease. Other researchers have found that it can reduce your risk of contracting cancer, and it may even help ease insomnia caused by nerves.
Do not choose iceberg lettuce if you want the most nutrition for your diet vegetables. Iceberg lettuce, nutrition experts say, has the least amount of nutrition in a group that has some better suppliers of nutrients. Any leafy green vegetable or lettuce type will be a better nutrition choice.
Generally speaking, if the lettuce has darker leaves, it will be more nutritious. Watercress and romaine have about seven times as much beta-carotene, twice the amount of potassium and three times the amount of calcium than you will find in iceberg lettuce.
Healthy food websites proclaim that romaine lettuce is especially helpful in the prevention of health issues or the easing of their symptoms. This is brought about by romaine lettuce's fiber, phytonutrients, minerals and vitamins. Romaine lettuce nutrition is due to its being a good source of chromium, manganese, vitamin C, folate, Vitamin K, and Vitamin A, including beta-carotene. Romaine also has a high amount of water in it, which makes it healthy, and it has a low calorie count.
By adding lettuce nutrition to your diet, and varying the types of lettuce you use, you will enjoy the most health benefits. Also, it's important not to tear up the leaves of lettuce. This releases enzymes that may dilute the nutrients available to you.
Salads are often called diet foods, but if you go too heavy on the dressings, that will increase the amount of calories in any salad. Salads, with moderate amounts of dressing, can help to take the edge off your hunger before a meal, and fill your stomach so you don't feel as hungry for the main course.
Use darker, leafy greens for your nutritious salads, and avoid the iceberg lettuce, which has almost no nutrients for your body. There are more tasty salad greens to use, and they have more lettuce nutrition. These types include escarole, chicory, endive, arugula and raddichio. Their fiber will slow your hunger pangs, and fill your stomach with bulk.
Dietary guidelines recommend that you eat about two cups of vegetables each day. Greens are not as dense as other vegetables, so you will need four cups of raw lettuce to get the same nutrient value.