Time to Eat More Cruciferous Vegetables (Recipe Roundup) - Purposeful Nutrition: Healing With Food.

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If you follow health trends in the media, I’m sure you’ve heard the term cruciferous vegetables and you’ve probably been encouraged to eat more fresh produce from this particular part of the veggie family. Since it includes some tasty varieties and has quite a few health benefits to boot, I thought today would be a great time to go over them and encourage you to cook more with them.

What Are Cruciferous Vegetables?

Cruciferous vegetables are basically veggies in the Cabbage family. More specifically they include all cabbage varieties, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and Brussel sprouts, as well as bok choy, collard greens, mustard greens, arugula, and even radishes, turnips, and rutabaga.

As you can see, this group includes a lot of different vegetables that lend themselves to being prepared in a variety of different ways from raw and salads, to roasting, boiling, and even grilling. That’s good news because you are sure to find some new favorites among this group of healthy produce and superfoods.

One of my favorite benefits of eating more cruciferous veggies is that they make great substitutes for starchier fare like potatoes, pasta, and even bread. Try mashing up cauliflower to replace mashed potatoes or rice. Make fritters from broccoli, egg, and a bit of ground flax seed, or use a cabbage leaf and use it instead of a bun for your sandwich or hamburger. Turnips and rutabaga, and even cauliflower ads a lot of body to soups and stews without all the added carbs. Play around with these vegetables and replace ingredients that harm your health with ones that help improve it.

What Are The Benefits Of Eating Them?

Speaking of improving health, let’s take a look at some of the benefits eating more members of the cabbage family will bring.

One of the reasons these vegetables have been in the media so much lately is that large consumption of them can give you protection against various different cancers. This seems to be the result of three different types of plant compounds working together in ways we don’t quite understand yet. Like most vegetables, cabbage and friends contain antioxidants that can help bond free-radicals and prevent them from causing cancer. Other compounds like glucosinolates and indole-3-carbinol give you protection from certain cancers, as does the fiber in these plants. Who knew that reducing your chance of cancer could be as simple as eating a plate of roasted Brussel sprouts or getting a second helping of slaw.

Other health benefits of eating these veggies both raw and cooked includes reduced inflammation (always a good thing), more stable blood sugars (helpful in the fight against obesity and diabetes), and improved heart health. They can even balance out an over production of estrogen levels through a plant compound that regulates the estrogen production in the human body. It’s interesting stuff, but the bottom line is that eating more cabbage, kale, and broccoli is good for the body. How can you start to work more of these particular vegetables into your diet?

I did a round-up of some wonderful recipes to get more cruciferous recipes in your diet from some of my favorite bloggers.