The most nutritious vegetables
Jerry
Minnich considered the
nutritional content of 89 common and not so common fruits and
vegetables then developed lists of all-star garden crops. In case
you're curious, here's his list (in declining order of importance) of
the crops that provide the most nutrition per serving: leaf amaranth,
sunflower seeds, broccoli, soybeans, almonds, navy beans, collards,
cowpeas, potatoes, dandelion greens, peanuts, peas, avocados, lima
beans, great northern beans, kidney beans, okra, watermelons, kale,
spinach, butternut squash, sweet potato, and turnip greens. Are
you as shocked as I am to see that the only fruit that makes the top 23
is the watery watermelon?
Minnich also provides
another list of vegetables that I choose to call
multivitamins. While the previous list merely takes into account
the total nutrition coming from the crop, this list looks at
versatility and chooses vegetables that provide a little bit of all or
most of the top vitamins and minerals: broccoli, leaf amaranth, lima
beans, cowpeas, watermelons, almonds, collards, peas, potatoes,
soybeans, and sunflower seeds. Why not choose a plant off this
list to go with your dinner every day rather than popping that
multivitamin pill?
Keep in mind that these
lists of nutritious vegetables are based on
USDA serving size, which I suspect might be why they're so strongly
weighted toward seeds. Half a cup of cooked beans is one serving
(350
calories) versus half a cup of broccoli (15 calories), 1 cup of
collards (11 calories), or half a cup of watermelon (23
calories.)
Another list in the book breaks 39 of the most common foods down by
pound per pound
nutrition, which is probably more useful (though dry weight would be
even more useful). That list is topped by broccoli, spinach,
Brussels sprouts, lima beans, peas, asparagus, globe artichokes,
cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and carrots.
Clearly, the healthiest
vegetable is still up for debate (although it can't hurt to cultivate a
liking for broccoli.) Still, we've decided to try out a few of
these high nutrition crops next year:
- Leaf amaranth --- We're experimenting with grain amaranth this year, but are going to have to spread out and try leaf amaranth next year. The latter is a summer green, which is a category underrepresented in our garden. (We only grow swiss chard during hot weather.) Since amaranth provides a hearty dose of calcium, iron, potassium, vitamin A, riboflavin, and vitamin C, along with lesser amounts of protein and niacin, it's hard to turn down.
- Dandelion greens --- We already gather these in the wild in the early spring, but I've nearly been pushed over the edge into buying a cultivated version and finding it a bed in the forest garden.
- Naked seed pumpkin ---
These come under a huge variety of names, such as Eat All Squash, Sweet
Nut Squash, Styrian Pumpkin, Lady
Godiva Pumpkin, Kakai Pumpkin, etc. The idea is that the seeds
don't have a hull, so they don't require any processing before eating
(except roasting, drying, or whatever you like to do with squash
seeds.) The downside is that the squash's flesh isn't very good
compared
to our darling butternuts so people usually give the insipid flesh to
livestock and grow something tastier for pies.
| This post is part of our Gardening for Maximum Nutrition lunchtime
series.
Read all of the entries: |
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
That's due to the way the author analyzed nutrition. Half a cup of potatoes is much heftier (when you discount the water) than half a cup of "real" vegetables. That's why I think the best analysis would be nutrition per pound of dry weight. Since most fruits and vegetables have so much water in them, they lose out in volume comparisons with more starchy tubers.
I also think that a real list of the top vegetables would have to take the negatives into account as well as the positives. Clearly, you could eat a lot of servings of "real" fruits and vegetables a day, but starchy vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. can only be eaten in moderation.
I've always heard that sweet potatoes were better for you than white potatoes, but I'm not sure now. Looking at them on a pound per pound basis, sweet potatoes have 12% more calories (although they do have 50% more fiber.) Sweet potatoes come out way ahead on vitamin A, but way behind on vitamin C. I guess it's a question of which nutrients you're looking for.