You’ve Been Eating Broccoli All Wrong (And How To Do It The Right Way)

I bet you didn’t know there was a right and a wrong way to eat your broccoli. Some of us don’t adhere to the normally subjective lectures of how to eat our food, but our failure to consume broccoli the right way is causing us to miss out on some vital nutrients.

The Secret to Eating Broccoli

You’ve been eating the wrong part. It’s understandable. If you search for broccoli images, you will find hundreds of pictures zoomed in on the flower of the broccoli plant. The broccoli stems and leaves rarely get the attention they deserve.

The flower of the broccoli plant does contain vitamins A, C and E as well as calcium and magnesium, but the bulk of the nutrients are in the stems and leaves. This makes sense when you think about it. Nutrients come in from the roots and spread to other areas of the broccoli, with the flower of the broccoli getting whatever is left over.

How Healthy Are The Broccoli Leaves?

Broccoli leaves contain 90% of the recommended intake of vitamin A, and 30 grams of this superfood contain 43% of your recommended vitamin C intake. All this time we’ve just been throwing it all away!

Broccoli leaves also contain a higher source of beta-carotene than the flower and the stem.

Beta-carotene is often associated with yellow and orange fruits and vegetables like carrots or yellow peppers. beta carotene is changed into vitamin A and is essential for good vision, eye health and a strong immune system. It is also essential for healthy skin and healthy mucous membranes.

Different Ways to Consume Broccoli

Like the broccoli flower, broccoli leaves can be steamed, sauteed, grilled or eaten raw. Their mild, earthy taste allows you to mix them up with the other greens on your plate. The broccoli stems have a sweet and crunchy taste - the perfect combination for a snack.

You could always cook the different parts of the broccoli all together too. If you plan to cook the whole vegetable, first cut the stems into medium sized pieces and cook them for two to three minutes before adding in the other parts of the broccoli so that it’s less rigid sections aren’t overcooked.

A Tip For Flower Loving Broccoli Eaters

You can still enjoy your yummy broccoli flowers after this revelation. When buying broccoli, try to choose broccoli heads that are dark green, bluish green, or purplish green because they contain a higher-concentration of beta-carotene than their pale green or yellowish green peers.

Even though we can’t travel through time or pick through the trash to get our precious broccoli leaves and stems back, we can at least walk confidently into our grocery stores knowing that this time, every part of the broccoli will be consumed.

Sources:

http://buynongmoseeds.com/we-have-been-eating-broccoli-wrong-our-whole-lives-heres-how-you-should-be-doing-it/

http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/betacarotene

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