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Broccoli

Now you’ve most likely seen them around the shops, considering they are in season now, or maybe in your fridge or even in your basket if you’re a fan, but I want to tell you the remarkable healing properties that come along with broccoli.

Broccoli is native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. Sprouting broccoli was cultivated in Italy in Ancient Rome and was introduced to England and America in the 1700s, which England started to call the “Italian asparagus”. It’s high in dietary fibre and several vitamins and minerals, broccoli should be dark green and have a thick crunchy stalk with several bud clusters on top, making it look like a tiny green tree. They can be eaten raw or cooked and there are plenty of ways to cook them. If you didn’t know, they also belong to the cabbage family same as the cauliflower, brussels sprouts and kale, and similar to other vegetables they are high in water and low in calories.

So why are they so good for you?

  • It’s high in fibre – So therefore it can help with your digestion, constipation and metabolism
  • Vitamin C – Helps with protecting your cells against damage and promotes healing throughout your body also helps with your immunity
  • Vitamin A – Helps with boosting eyesight, helping/promoting growth, as well as cell division and reproduction
  • Vitamin K – Does a lot when it comes to the arteries and veins, for it helps blood clotting, therefore, making it very helpful with wounds to heal, so you not there continuously bleeding
  • Vitamin B9 – (Folic acid) helps your body with producing new healthy red blood cells which is critical during rapid growth periods such as pregnancy and fetal development, it also a key role in breaking down homocysteine, an amino acid that can exert harmful effects in the body
  • Potassium – This mineral helps with everything that connects with your bodily functions from heart and blood vessels to nerves and muscles, so this may reduce the risks of high blood pressure, strokes, diabetes and kidney stones
  • Iron – This mineral is needed by your body for growth and development, your body uses this to make hemoglobin, a protein in your red blood cells that help carry oxygen from your lungs to everywhere else and myoglobin, a protein that helps provide oxygen to the muscles
  • Sulforaphane- This is a cancer-fighting plant compound that has been shown to help the risks of prostate cancer, breast cancer, colon and oral cancers
  • Calcium – Helps with maintaining healthy and strong bones
  • Reduces cholesterol (reducing heart disease)

Now if you or your kids are fussy when it comes to the veggies or you’re just running out of ideas on how to cook broccoli, we have a list of ways to try out and we also have a youtube video of Miky showing how to make a wonderful and delicious Czech dish, which she also used to get her kids eating their broccoli. So go have a look and also give it a try it’s super easy and yummy.  Enjoy!

With all the different ways of cooking broccoli whether it’s boiling, steaming, stir-frying or just plain old microwaving, they all have different effects towards the vegetable compounds, particularly vitamin C, some say steaming is the best way to cook the broccoli, but as long as you eat them often it doesn’t matter.

Here are some other ways to cook them

  1. You can put it on pizza, with thin and small pieces and also mix it within the cheese so when it melts the kids won’t see it and will want to eat it too
  2. You can throw them into omelettes, guarantee to cut them up into tiny pieces if it’s for kids  or just dice them if it’s for you
  3. You can put them in a salad, raw of course, and if you mix it up with other delicious and crunchy things the kids won’t even taste it
  4. You can bread them then bake or deep fry (in organic oil) as a nice side dish
  5. Put them into stir fries, small pieces for the kid’s course
  6. If your making some sort of sauce for the kids or yourself whether it may be a soup, something creamy or just an easy gravy sauce, you can cook the broccolis till they’re soft and mash them then add it to the sauce
  7. You can also to the option above and put the mashed broccoli into mashed potatoes, lasagna, pie or even spaghetti
  8. Or if you don’t necessarily want to add them to something and you just want to know how to make it more exciting as a side dish, mix it with some seasonings like salt, pepper, and garlic powder and just use some other sauces like maybe fish sauce or something like that to enhance the flavour.

There are so many ways to create such yummy or inconspicuous dishes for you and the kids. As a picky child, myself, growing up, I am quite sad that I’ve missed out on most of these different and unique nutrients, and we hope you have found these tips a bit more helpful and make great use of this blog to start getting the proper nutrients and properties into you and your kids and so that you can try different things. Broccoli is something you should always try to get into your diet more often.

 

Thank you, I hope you enjoyed this blog, this was Tashi and I will see you on the next blog!

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