What is the Healthiest Vegetable?

The healthiest prize for all vegetables goes to swiss chard. Chard is the 'king' of all vegetables. It is also widely available, cheap and very easy to cook.

One cup of cooked chard is only 35 calories. But the wealth of nutrition you can get from this one cup is quite incredible.

Vitamin A
Typically we think of carrots when we think of foods high in Vitamin A. But one cup of cooked chard will give you 109 percent of the daily recommended intake of Vitamin A.

Vitamin C
Normally we think of citrus fruits to get our vitamin C quota. But one cup of chard will supply us with 52% of our daily needs for Vitamin C.

Dietary Fiber
Bran comes to mind when we think of meeting our daily dietary needs for fiber. But one cup of chard provides us with 15 percent of our daily needs for dietary fiber. That's about the same amount as in one heavy-duty bran muffin.

Potassium
Potassium is very important for the nerves. You'd have to eat two bananas (the highest concentrated fruit for potassium) to equal one cup of cooked chard and get 27 percent of your daily requirement for potassium.

Vitamin E
Vitamin E is very important for a healthy sex drive and anti-aging benefits. Chard is one of the few vegetables with significant Vitamin E. It provides 16 percent of our daily requirement.

Calcium
We usually think of milk when we're concerned about getting adequate calcium. But swiss chard makes a good substitute. One cup of chard has about 35% of the calcium (and only one quarter of the calories) as one cup of 2% milk.

To see more about the outstanding health benefits of chard, check out the best source of non-profit nutritional information online; the WHFoods site. They provide an impressive wealth of information about the world's healthiest foods.

The photos shown here are by rappy and Mom the Barbarian at Flickr.

Chard is part of a group of vegetables known as 'greens'. Greens include chard, kale and collard greens and these three vegetables are almost equal in their tremendous health benefits.

Forget about counting calories and see more about how eating vegetables is a great way to lose weight by actually eating more food instead of less.

Chard is also really easy to cook. See a quick recipe here.

Swiss Chard Recipe in Oprah Magazine

The January 2006 issue of Oprah Magazine has a recipe for cooking swiss chard. This is the first time I've seen a swiss chard recipe in a mainstream magazine. Their recipe includes bacon bits, which I'm sure tastes nice, but is not necessary to enjoy the great flavor of chard.

Swiss chard is one of the three healthiest vegetables you can eat. It's only 35 calories per cup. It's got way more vitamins and minerals than even spinach, and spinach is usually considered one of the most nutritious of vegetables. If you are trying to lose weight then eating lots of vegetables is ideal. It will fill you up and satiate you for very few calories and lots of nutrition.

The combination of photonutrients and fiber in swiss chard seems to be very effective at preventing digestive tract cancers according to several studies.

One cup of swiss chard has over three hundred percent of the daily recommended value of vitamin K. Vitamin K is very important for bone health. A cup also provides you with 109 percent of the daily recommended value of Vitamin A. Vitamin A is thought to play a role in cancer prevention and prevention of oxygen-based damage to cells. It's also very beneficial for vision and eye health. If you are a smoker it's particularly important to get more Vitamin A and C.

One cup of swiss chard also provides 52 percent of the recommended daily amount of Vitamin C, 27 percent DV of potassium, 38 percent of magnesium 22% of iron, 16% of Vitamin E and 14% of fiber. It's an amazingly nutritious vegetable!

Here's the very simple way I cook chard;

Simple Swiss Chard Recipe

Wash the chard and cut it into bigger than bite size pieces. I use the stalk as well. Throw the chard into a pot (with a lid) with a tiny bit of water. Cook on high heat (boil, steam) for one to three minutes, depending on how tender you want the texture to be. Add a little bit of salt and butter or olive oil at the end.

That's it! It's a simple and fast recipe. You can vary this in countless ways. I usually throw in any left-over vegetables from the previous day. Onions, garlic, mushrooms, sesame oil or sesame seeds would also all add good flavor.

WHFoods has a similar recipe they call Mediterranean Swiss Chard (as pictured above). They also provide much more detailed nutritional information.