Vegetables have always been present in a good nutritional regimen. There are few issues in nutrition that are not controversial, and the inclusion of vegetables in the diet seems to be one of them.
Next, we will mention the benefits of including these foods and some tips to increase your consumption.
What are vegetables?
Vegetables are everything that comes from a plant, although their meaning can vary, coming to understand vegetables.
How does including vegetables benefit us?
Great content in vitamins and minerals.
Vegetables have a lot of vitamins, especially vitamin C and A. Vitamin A is linked to the yellow or red color, and vitamin C to the green of the leaves. These two vitamins are excellent antioxidants, capable of neutralizing the negative effects on free radicals, guilty of certain degenerative diseases.
High fiber content.
Fiber is nothing more than a carbohydrate that is not digested by digestive enzymes, so it is not absorbed and passes throughout the digestive system.
Fiber has many benefits in our body:
- Acting as a probiotic.
- provocation of gastric emptying (nutrients will be absorbed more slowly, helping to avoid glucose spikes).
- Other benefits of fiber is the feeling of satiety when retaining water, increasing its volume and causing bloating, a signal that the body interprets as filling and that you have to stop eating.
- Decreases the absorption of cholesterol, by retaining it with it and eliminating it with feces.
- It prevents diseases related to the digestive system.
- Avoid constipation due to reduced intestinal transit time.
Polyphenols.
These chemical substances contained in plants are intended to protect plants from the environment.
When consuming vegetables, our body has the need to defend itself against these substances, which causes an increase in the defenses in our body.
Great nutritional density.
A large amount of vegetables will provide us with very few calories, however, they have a large volume. This will be very useful for us in low calorie diets.
Tips for including more vegetables.
Introduce vegetables in recipes that contain other tastier foods, to get used to its flavor. In this link we can see an exquisite and very complete recipe.
Try to cut down on processed foods . The continuous consumption of processed foods will cause us to be less sensitive when it comes to tasting vegetables, since we will be used to certain flavor enhancers contained in processed foods.
Introduce vegetables in the form of vegetable creams . You can add a multitude of vegetables and greens, which will make a perfect complement to your meals.
