Healthy Eating: The Lowdown on Kohlrabi
Speaking about being grateful, we are gifted with the most nutritious thing to eat, giving us nutrition to maintain a good health. Health is the real wealth, in order to live a healthy and fit life we should eat foods that contains a combination of great things.
Food that is good for our health can give us energy to grow and stay active. People who eat fruit and vegetables as a regular part of their daily diet have a reduced risk of many chronic diseases since these wonder foods provide a source for many nutrients like potassium, fiber, folate (folic acid) and vitamins A, E and C.
We all must have spotted knobby purple or green vegetable in the markets and wondered what is this odd-shaped vegetable. Well, it’s a fantastically versatile vegetable, Kohlrabi, with a taste and texture somewhere between cabbage and broccoli stems.
Kohlrabi is not so known apart from certain regions of the world but is slowly gaining more popularity. It is a crispy, juicy and slightly spicy vegetable at the center which is surrounded by two distinct fibrous layers that do not soften appreciably when cooked, generally, these layers are peeled away prior to cooking.
When you see Kohlrabi being sold, don’t pass up an opportunity to pick them up if you see the greens still attached — they’re delicious and can be eaten raw in salad as they’re tender to eat and consume Kohlrabi in different ways like:
Kohlrabi Soup
You can enjoy kohlrabi cooked to just like you would like the raw taste and texture. Cooking kohlrabi brings out its natural sweetness and tastes really good. While kohlrabi can be thrown into a basic chunky vegetable soup, we particularly like it in a creamy, pulped soup with mild spices so that sweet kohlrabi flavor can really shine through.
Roasted and Steamed
As mentioned earlier, the leaves of kohlrabi are also edible, you can sauté them add some herbs along with fish or chicken with fresh herbs and there you go with your healthy midday snack. We throw steamed kohlrabi into frittatas, stir-fries, and pasta dishes or we can toss it with other roasted veggies like potatoes for a hearty side dish.
Benefits of Eating Kohlrabi
Kohlrabi is an excellent source of nutrients. One cup of cooked kohlrabi contains only 48 calories but is still whopping with 2 grams of fiber. Thus it has great ability to lower down your cholesterol, improve bowl function and also keep you fill due to the presence of fiber.
You might be amazed by the vitamins and minerals content of kohlrabi which provide for the good health. Kohlrabi contains 89 mg of vitamins C per serving which is essential for your body to fight off various diseases caused by the free radicals.
It also contains vitamin B6 along with potassium, copper and manganese. All these minerals help you to prevent high blood pressure, and also promote the absorption of iron and increase your metabolic activity.
Kohlrabi contains the phytochemicals such as isothiocyanates, indoles, anthocyanins and sulforphane. Kohlrabi retains these compounds even on cooking. All these compounds are good for fighting prostate cancer and colon cancer. These are also shown to be anti inflammatory.
Kohlrabi is extremely healthy and good in taste too. It can be used raw or cooked as you like. Thus if you have not tried it as yet, you must try it. For all those who are keeping an eye on their waistlines should definitely try this out and they would be amazed with the results, as you would feel full after eating it.