What Nutrients Are There In Vegetables?

A great variety of essential nutrients is found in the vegetables. Your mom was right, when she said, 'eat your vegetables'. Vegetables bundle a lot of nutrients in a minimum of calories.

Leafy vegetables, such as spinach and lettuce are rich source of vitamin A and C. Vitamin A is essential for eyes and skin and vitamin C is essential to maintain healthy connective tissue. Vegetables are among the best sources of vitamin K. Vitamin K protects against hip fractures that are caused by osteoporosis and helps blood clot. The body doesn't store vitamin K as long as other fat-soluble vitamins, eating a good source of the vitamin daily is recommended. Good sources of vitamin K include Swiss chard, kale, spinach, and collards.

Vegetables are also good sources of minerals such as calcium, potassium, and magnesium. Minerals are essential nutrients, needed to regulate body processes such as muscle contractions and nerve impulses. Vegetables such as turnip greens, mustard greens, okra, kale and broccoli are good sources of calcium. Sources of potassium include potatoes, squash, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes are good sources of calcium. Sources of magnesium include spinach, parsnips, and lima beans.

Vegetables are also high in phytochemicals, such as carotenoids, flavonoids, indoles and isoflavones that can fight cancer. Many of the dark bright colors in vegetables come from carotenoids. Generally, the darker the color of the vegetable, the higher the nutrient content. Dark salad greens such as spinach, watercress, and romaine lettuce contain more nutrients than pale greens such as iceberg lettuce.

A great variety of nutrients is found in vegetables we consume. Green leaves - whether from cabbage or such leaf vegetables as spinach - are rich sources of vitamins A and C; vitamin A is essential for eyes and skin, while vitamin C is necessary to maintain a healthy connective tissue, Calcium, very important for the bone structure of growing children, and iron, necessary for healthy blood, are also provided by these plants.

Other green vegetables, such as broccoli and kale, also include some of the B vitamins, a large group needed by the body to extract energy from carbohydrates. Peas and beans furnish vitamins of the B group; only vitamin B12, which is not produced by plants, need come from other sources.

Roots and tubers, often considered as mere carbohydrate filters, are also vitamin-rich. One medium-sized potato can supply up to a third or more of the body's daily requirement of vitamin C, as well as some of the B vitamins. Sweet potatoes are similarly nourishing, and provide the body with vitamin A. Carrots are another source of vitamin A: Carotene, a basis of the vitamin, was named after this vegetable.

Many vegetables are also important sources of proteins: Peas and beans contain the highest proportion, but potatoes also have a significant amount, as do green leaves and the cabbage family, especially Brussels sprouts. All proteins consist of long folded chains of complex molecules called amino acids. The human body can make most of the amino acids it needs for its growth and repair, but some must come from the proteins we eat. Meat, fish and animal products such as eggs and cheese are complete protein foods since they contain the full complement of these crucial amino acids.

There are iron, vitamins, nutrients

All vitamins...

Vitamins a,b,c,d,especially k , niacin , iron....the list goes on and on.eat-up!