rocket salad, valerian, spinach, bull’s blood, red chard
Rocket salad
The rocket salad, scientific name Eruca Sativa, is a plant with interesting properties, belonging to the family of Cruciferae. It grows spontaneous in the Mediterranean area up to a height of 800 MASL.
Its leaves have an intense taste, almost bitter. One of the properties owned by the rocket salad If to help the digestive system. Its assumption helps in fact the production of gastric juices.
In addition to its digestive properties, the rocket salad helps the expulsion of body liquids and it is therefore a discrete diuretic.
Thanks to the presence of vitamin C, it can be consumed against colds and cough to fasten their healing.
The presence of minerals instead makes the rocket salad a valid food supplement able to reinforce the immunitary system. This way the resistance to season allergies is also increased. The rocket salad in fact, thanks to components such as vitamin C, A and E, beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin owns high anti-oxidative properties. For this reason, its inclusion into our diet brings good benefits to our body.
Valerian
The valerian salad is an annual herbaceous plant, classified in the family of valerianaceae.
The valerian salad is a vegetable that can be consumed as a lettuce or chicory.
The organoleptic properties are to be found only in the young plant. When it ripens in fact, it grows taller and develops the flowers and seed production, it reduces its leaf mass and it is less pleasant in taste (stem and flowers).
The valerian salad as a low energy content and its nutritional function is meant to increase the fibre content, mineral salts and vitamins in the diet. The few calories it owns and from glucose and protein origins, while the fats are irrelevant, the cholesterol is absent. The most relevant minerals are iron and potassium, while in vitamins, it is high in carotenoids (pro-vit. A), ascorbic acid (vit. C), tocopherols (vit. E) and folic acid.
From a dietetic point of view, the valerian salad can be used in any diet regime, also in hypocaloric therapy against the obesity and nutritional strategies against the cure against metabolism pathologies.
Spinach
The spinaches are herbaceous vegetables belonging to the family of Chenopodiaceae.
They are a very widespread vegetable, and in nutrition they are classified in the VI fundamental group.
Not by chance for Arabs who introduced it in Europe between 1200 and 1300, the spinach was the “prince of vegetables”. In kitchen, the spinaches can be used in many ways.
Mineralizing, antianemia and nutrient, the spinaches are the ideal ingredient, to re-create the myth of Popeye. Their fame tied to strongly “energetic” vegetable is the result of an error in reporting the iron content in the first nutritional schemes. The energy contained in spinaches is also questioned by the discovery of presence of oxalates defined as antinutrients that strongly limit the bioavailability of minerals (iron, calcium, magnesium) which are contained in green-leaves vegetables.
Bull’s blood
leaves, intense colour. With a very sweet taste, only the leaves and the stem can be eaten. It can be eaten raw or cooked, preferably steam cook.
It is perfect to give a dashing aspect to mix salads and it inherited the taste and juicy consistency, peculiar feature of the chards. It perfectly goes with all tastes and thanks to its ruby red colour, it is indicated to revive the mix salads composed also by “oriental” references. Its decorative aspect is mostly appreciated.
Red Chard
The red chard has big green leaves with intense red ribs in the centre. Its taste is sweet and it contains 25 calories for 100g. Rich in fibre, it is an excellent aid against constipation; Rich in fibres it is also advised as an herbal solution against liver chronic diseases. The red chard contains also a generous dose of potassium, element that helps controlling the correct functioning of muscles, particularly indicated in the diet of those who have had trauma surgeries or for those who suffer cardiac diseases.