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Crunchy, Peppery, and Packed with Benefits: The Watercress Revolution
Bite-Size Reads for Your Health and Waistline
This leafy green probably isn’t at the top of your shopping list. You’ve probably had it though, even if you didn’t realize it. It’s often in salads and looks a little like a different type of grass, with a long, green stem and smaller round leaf. Watercress has a bit of a peppery flavor and comes from the same family as kale, cabbage, and brussels sprouts.
In 2014, the CDC gave watercress a perfect score of 100 on its list of powerhouse foods based on its nutrient density. Nutrient density is an evaluation of the ratio of nutrients to calories. This means watercress must bang quite a drum! While this study isn’t all that recent, it still begs us to look closer at this vegetable.
One cup of watercress is only 4 calories, 0.8g of protein, 0.4g of carbs, half of which is fiber, and has a tremendous amount of vitamin K, a good amount of Vitamins A and C, plus a bit of calcium and manganese. Then it has small amounts of vitamin E, thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and copper.
Watercress also gives us antioxidants. There’s a study that looked at the antioxidants of various cruciferous vegetables; watercress had 40…
