As salaam alaikum bunnies and lions, in sha Allah you are well,

When I first started studying nutrition about 20 years ago with the Ausar Auset society, a pan African Egyptology group, our teacher Shekyum Khemensi told us that eating salad with every meal helped the digestion and  the raw food helped produce enzymes in the mouth that helped the food started digestion immediately rather than when it gets to the  stomach.

 From then on, even through my ignorant days of living on white pasta, we had salad with every main meal.

FUNFACT “Salad days” is a Shakespearean idiomatic expression meaning a youthful time, accompanied by the inexperience, enthusiasm, idealism, innocence, or indiscretion that one associates with a young person.-Wikipedia.

 We know that at least half of your plate should be vegetables and that doesn’t mean chips or French fries. It means one or two salads or a coked vegetable AND salad.

This morning on livestrong  website, I am reading that eating a cup of lettuce or raw kale very days helps you live 11 years younger, alhmdulilah whoopee!

Nutrients and bioactives in green leafy vegetables and cognitive decline

Over a period of 4-7 years average means time, a group of 58 -99 year olds were tested and the conclusion was  consumption of approximately 1 serving per day of green leafy vegetables and foods rich in vitamin K (phylloquinone), lutein, nitrate, folate, α-tocopherol, and kaempferol may help to slow cognitive decline with aging. For more info please see neurology

VITAMIN K can be depleted by used of synthetic anti biotics from green leafy vegetables;

• cabbage,
• broccoli,
• kelp and sea vegetables like spirulina and samphire grass
• eggs
•  OATS

LUTEIN –Lutein is synthesized only by plants and like other xanthophylls is found in high quantities in green leafy vegetables.

• spinach,
• kale 
• Yellow carrots.

NITRATES are a type of natural salt that is anti microbial and kill harmful pathogens like salmonella. They are also added to meat preserve it. There is difference of opinion of whether nitrates are harmful or useful the usual dichotomy of western thought. They are actually useful and harmful and it is the balance of these nutrients that is most important to the human body and again.

• Nitrates need vitamin C to regulate the conversion to nitrosamines, which is why fresh fruits and vegetables high in nitrates are healthier than meats with artificially high addition of nitrates. The vitamin C in fresh vegetable and fruits , regulate  and absorption of the nitrates making them useful but not damaging.

Vegetables high in nitrates include;

• lettuce
• beets
• carrots
• green beans
• spinach
• parsley
• cabbage
• radishes
• celery
• collard greens

 

FOLATES IN FOODS 

• Dark Leafy Greens. 
• Asparagus. …
• Broccoli. …
• Citrus Fruits. …
• Beans, Peas, and Lentils. …
• Avocado. …
• Okra. …
• Brussels Sprout.

 

α-TOCEPHEROL VITAMON E

• turnip greens
•  broccoli
• asparagus

 

KAEMPFEROL 

• broccoli]
• Brussels sprouts
• cucumber
• lettuce
• apples

So you see there are lots to choose from to make a salad to have with your chicken and chips, I’m serious, if I haven’t had time or energy to cook and buy chicken and chips which is about once a month then I always have salad with it, alhmdulilah.

Green Leafy Vegetables  can come under the heading or Herbage , which is mentioned in The Quran., which is mentioned in my new book ” Sacred Sunnah Superfoods”