Back To The Garden: Eat Your Veggies THIS Way for Max Benefits 🥕🥦🫑

A word salad on salad, and dancing around some nutty news like it's 1984.

3-4 min read

BUMP AROUND

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which coincides well (or terribly?) with high school reunion season, a common source of acute anxiety for many people.  Turns out there’s a scientific reason why we get particularly worked up about seeing folks we haven’t thought about since senior year.  The memories we form in adolescence and early adulthood have been shown in research to be our most vivid, which is why, for example, so many of us have a visceral response to music we loved in high school/college and perhaps why some of us still listen to saaay, Dave Matthews Band. The reunion anxiety stems from a phenomenon known as the reminiscence bump, which can make encountering our past feel like crashing into our present, or as Dave would say: you, quite literally, crash into you…

On a brighter note, this also maybe helps explain the adorable trend going viral on social media right now, where kids are asking their 40- and 50-something parents to dance like they did in the 80s, yielding pure joy and delight for all of us watching.  Henceforth I think the dance should be called the Reminiscence Bump…

THIS IS NUTS

If none of my earlier posts about endocrine-disrupting chemicals have moved the needle for you, how about this: microplastics have been found in human testicles, in ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the samples studied. That is all. 😱😳😱😳😱

HERE’S A TIP, MAKE THE CHANGE

Moving on! One way to minimize your plastic intake is to eat less packaged food and more whole fruits and vegetables.  But choking down huge bowls of salad is not always your best bet–it’s not only less nutrient-dense than cooked veggies, (think about how that huge bag of spinach comes out of the sautée pan in a thimble) but some veggies do their best work when exposed to some heat.   Now, the raw truth is that the best way to prepare your veggies is any way that you will actually eat them.  But take it from someone who spent years as a Raw-curious Foodist: there are some guidelines for maximum nutrient benefit, and some may surprise you: 

• COOK/STEAM to improve absorption and bioavailability. Do not boil- all the nutrients leech out (and boiled vegetables, really? Is this 1950?):

  • Carrots (for beta carotene)

  • Mushrooms (conflicting schools but I am firmly among the must-cook.  They are loaded with natural toxins (hello, it’s fungi?), and many are difficult to digest raw.  Hard pass on those white salad bar slices, and extra credit if you remember to expose them to sunlight before cooking for max Vitamin D!)

  • Tomatoes (lycopene)

  • Spinach (iron)

• GO RAW (some caveats, but generally more bioavailable)

  • Bell peppers (Max Vitamin C, tho other antioxidants benefit from cooking)

  • Celery 

  • Cucumbers (duh…who wants a hot cucumber?*)

  • Radishes (Tip! Soak in ice water for 1-2 hrs for max crunchiness)

  • Watercresssssss

• EITHER: CHEF’S CHOICE

  • Broccoli (Vitamin C, but cruciferous are hard to digest, a quick steam will not inhibit benefits)

  • Cauliflower (ditto) 

  • Kale but make it massaged

💫 That was actually more than one tip, you’re welcome.  Keep the change, and paid subscribers read on for what to do with all those damn vegetables. 💫

*that’s what she said

TOSSED SALADS AND SCRAMBLED EGGS

Now that I’ve legit ruined your next trip to Sweetgreen, I give you some extra stuff to have on hand to help ALL your veggies taste good.  You can still do a mean crudité plate with radishes, celery, cukes and broccoli, so make it 100% raw and plant-based with this amazing cashew dip, that works beautifully as a sandwich spread as well: