The health benefits of spring greens

By Karen Malkin

Patients may roll their eyes at you when you suggest they “eat their greens,” but to safeguard their health, there’s good reason for them to get in the habit of enjoying them. To prevent nutrient deficiencies and serious illness, the United States Department of Agriculture recommends eating one half-cup of green leafy vegetables daily.

Leafy greens are full of fiber, which can significantly lower blood pressure and lessen the risk for developing heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and certain gastrointestinal diseases. They’re also chock full of vitamins and minerals: one cup of cooked spinach contains 66 percent of your Daily Values (DV) of folate, one cup of cooked Swiss chard has 716 percent of the DV for vitamin K, and one cup of cooked mustard greens has 59 percent of the DV of vitamin C.

Spring is the ideal time for patients to load up on these power-packed vegetables. It’s nature’s time of renewal, and the leafy greens that grow now are designed to rejuvenate and cleanse the body after the winter season of slowing down and eating warmer, heavier foods. Traditional Chinese Medicine links the spring season with the liver and gallbladder meridians. Reducing intake of animal fats and proteins, and eating lighter meals filled with greens, supports the healing of these meridian systems.

Bitter greens such as dandelion greens, nettles, and arugula are particularly helpful for digestion and liver function. The flavor of bitter greens causes your mouth and digestive tract to secrete enzymes and bile that help to break down food. Bitter greens also stimulate the liver to help with detoxification. By encouraging patients to incorporate more bitter greens into their diet, it can help reduce sugar cravings, which can reduce the toxic burden sugar puts on your system. If bitter greens are too unpalatable for patients, they can be cooked with an acid, such as lemon or apple cider vinegar, and salt to soften the taste. Suggest they step up from lettuce, which is milder and sweet, to spinach, which is slightly bitter, to Swiss chard, which is somewhat salty, and finally to the bitter powerhouses of kale, collards, and arugula.

The additional list of beneficial properties offered by greens is long and includes everything from improving circulation to strengthening the immune system, clearing congestion, and promoting healthy gut flora. Greens provide a host of valuable nutrients, micronutrients, and phytonutrients.

Chlorophyll, found in all green vegetables, is a powerful blood builder akin to liquid oxygen. For those wanting to conceive, greens provide high folate content. If your patients need to increase their calcium intake, leafy greens beat milk because they don’t put the body into an acidic state, as dairy does. Here are some greens with significant amounts of calcium that you might recommend to patients:

• Cooked beet greens
• Dandelion greens
• Turnip greens
• Kale
• Collards
• Parsley
• Watercress

Encourage patients to try a variety of methods such as steaming, boiling, sautéing in oil, water sautéing, waterless cooking, or lightly pickling, as in a pressed salad. Boiling makes greens plump and relaxed. Boil for less than a minute so that the nutrients in the greens do not get lost in the water. With organic greens, drinking the cooking water provides a health-giving broth or tea. Steaming makes greens more fibrous and tighter, which is great for those trying to lose weight. Raw salad is also a wonderful preparation for greens. It’s refreshing, cooling, and supplies live enzymes.

If your patients can get into the habit of adding leafy green veggies to their daily diet, they will likely notice positive improvements to their energy levels, complexion, and waistline. If they have some garden space, encourage them to growing your own; it doesn’t get much more local than that.

What Does the Gut Have to Do with It?

Along with the garden in your backyard, there’s also a “garden” in the gut, and it’s comprised of a complex network of trillions of microorganisms that work together to maintain vibrant health and promote permanent weight loss. This is because of their influence on metabolism, appetite regulation, energy expenditure, endocrine regulation, inflammation, and insulin resistance. The influence is so strong that imbalanced gut flora contributes to obesity, according to a 2009 study in the journal Nature.  

To prime the gut to replenish gut microflora, advise patients to load up on leafy greens. A 2016 study published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology suggests that due to an unusual sugar molecule found in them, sugar sulfoquinovose (SQ), leafy greens are essential for feeding good gut bacteria. According to the study, SQ evidently limits the ability of bad bacteria to colonize the gut by shutting them out of the prime “real estate.”

As always, organic fruit and vegetables are better for your patients’ health, and the health of the environment. If it’s not in their budget to do this, have them consult the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list and prioritize buying organic for these fruits and veggies, as they are the ones sprayed with the highest amount of pesticides.

References

Speciale, G., Jin, Y., Davies, G., Williams, S., and Goddard-Borger, E. (2016) YihQ is a sulfoquinovosidase that cleaves sulfoquinovosyl diacylglyceride sulfolipid. Nature Chemical Biology. Retrieved from: https://www.nature.com/articles/nchembio.2023

Turnbaugh, P., Hamady, M., Yatsunenko, T., Cantarel, B., Duncan, A., Ley, R., Sogin, M., Jones, W., Roe, B., Affourtit, J., Egholm, M., Henrissat, B., Heath, A., Knight, R., and Gordon, J. (2009) A core gut microbiome in obese and lean twins. Nature. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19043404