From the ol’ inbox:
Hi Kate! I love the Blog.
I was wondering if you could provide some insight into what you think is the healthiest vegetable that we could be eating? My husband and I are having a disagreement on whether it’s brussel sprouts or cauliflower. Could you help settle this debate?
- Denise
Wow, I’m…honored? It’s a bit weird that you’re essentially asking nutritional advice from a person who has a BMI that most people would assume had a mistake made in its calculation, and who has written books on whiskey and candy, arguably two of the least healthy food products out there. But I’ll give it a shot.
I’m going to cop out on the answer, but only a bit, and paraphrase an answer often given to the question of “What’s the best exercise out there?”. The healthiest vegetable out there is the vegetable you enjoy preparing and eating the most. My logic is this: If there’s a magical vegetable out there that gives you your daily recommend allowance of every vitamin known to mankind, but you despise eating it, guess what? You’re likely not going to eat it. Find the vegetables you like, and find different ways to enjoy them.
That being said, my own go to vegetable is broccoli, for three four distinct reasons:
- From a Nutritional point of view, it’s high in fiber and calcium(Comparatively speaking, a cup of cooked broccoli has as much calcium as a glass of milk), low in fat, has a fair amount of folic acid and vitamin C – both of which help the body absorb iron. Oh, and broccoli has a fair bit of iron on its own.
- From a health perspective, it is said that Broccoli has trace elements of chromium, which help in preventing diabetes, and sulphoraphane, which researchers believe help prevent cancer.
- It’s easy to prepare. Any food that you can eat raw is a good food to have on hand. It also steams well, and can handle boiling quite well. It mixes well into casseroles, if this is your thing, and takes to soup like a beagle takes to baying.
- It grows easily, and is plentiful. This means it’s cheap, and can be found at most every grocery store.
Is it the healthiest? Fftttt…I don’t know. I just know that I like it, and it’s my go-to vegetable nearly everytime I’m at the grocery store.
If you’re looking an answer for the brussel sprouts/cauliflower debate – I’ll side on brussel sprouts, only if they’ve been roasted with some pancetta (which, admittedly, sort of defeats the premise of your question).
