Leafy greens
The wonder food of wonder foods. Leafy greens get joked about in bad memes as getting purchased at the grocery store only to have it go bad in the fridge prior to tossing it on trash day…week after week. Sadly, I used to be one of those people. Now I buy enough to eat 4-6 cups of raw leafy greens every day. Sounds excessive, maybe, but let me tell you why you should consider this one habit over most others.
When to eat: Daily…multiple times daily.
I aim for 4-6 cups of raw leafy greens every day. In a week, this equates to ~2 bunches of kale, a 1 lb carton of spinach, a big head of leafy purple or green spring lettuce, and a 5-6 oz carton of arugula. Mix in swiss chard, dandelion, collard greens, bok choy, romaine, and any other leafy green friends hanging out at your local farmer’s or supermarket.
Classification: Organic
You don’t want to ingest the chemicals that tender greens get saturated with in a traditional crop of lettuce — for greens, organic is a must. Happily, leafy greens tend to be a more affordable product item, so you don’t have any excuses on this one! Why organic? Leafy greens don’t have a thick skin to protect their edible portions (like an avocado or banana does), so they soak in everything they’re sprayed with.
Where to store: Fridge
It takes a little time (15 minutes each week) and some discipline, but I recommend chopping, rinsing and air drying your leafy greens when you get home from the grocery store. This takes out any excuses – and makes you more accountable – to actually eating them. For extra credit, wrap your rinsed and air dried greens in breathable linen kitchen towels, then store them in the fridge. Grab one at each meal time, unroll, and add a couple hefty handfuls of greens to any meal.
Wholeness factor: Best
Here’s the must-know on why leafy greens are so important as a daily ritual: They are one of the truest forms of functional medicine. Chalk full of vitamins, fiber, protein and chlorophyll, leafy greens flood your body with prebiotic fiber and detoxifying agents that fuel your gut’s microbiome to help regulate your hormones, support healthy metabolic activity and digestion, and to literally clean your organs.
Apparently greens are the most under-consumed food in the American diet, but I would argue it is one of the easiest changes to make – I’m not asking you to strip out your beloved bad habit (yet) – just to add this to whatever else you normally eat.
How I eat them
I’ve seen it written somewhere that it doesn’t matter if you like leafy greens – you just have to eat them. Eating greens doesn’t mean I CHANGE what I eat – it just means I add greens to my meals!
I challenge you to include greens in at least two of your three meals each day. The way I almost always eat them is by sneaking them in: I plate 2-3 cups beneath or mix them into my main entrée raw, steamed or wilted.
Every variety of greens boasts a unique nutritional profile so switch it up regularly!
- Eat raw: Tender, more watery greens like butter lettuce, bibb, romaine or baby kale. I also eat arugula raw, but it’s a more bitter green so you’ll want to pair it with more umami foods to balance its bite.
- Raw or cooked: Spinach and cabbage do great raw or steamed, and cabbage is phenomenal steamed or even pickled (kraut!)
- Cooked: I always cook Swiss chard, turnip, collard, mustard and dandelion greens…they do well in soups, stir fries, roasted or steamed. For kale, I do about 50/50 raw vs cooked, but always strip the kale leaves from their stem. I prefer lacitano (flat) kale raw and curly kale steamed or in soups. When I eat kale raw I use my hands to toss it and rub in some amazing olive oil and sea salt before plating.
- My final hack: When I’ve had a low-greens day, or if I foresee a day without many greens in it (e.g. a BBQ at a friend’s house!) by far the easiest way for me to get 4+ cups of greens in all at once is to wilt spinach on the stove – I can wilt 4-6 cups of spinach and plate it beneath an over easy egg and hot sauce and call it a dang day. YUM, for the record. Steamed spinach also sneaks into most meals in a really tame way (like, phenomenal alongside a medium rare sirloin and grilled portobellos) – so you really just have to cut the excuses, buy the dang lettuce, then make sure it finds its way onto your plate.
