Your organic nutrition
One of the main challenges of a healthy lifestyle is to have a nutritious and balanced diet. That means a balanced consumption of a protein rich food and veggies. But is the nutrient intake complete? Even if it is, does it mean spending too much? What if you can grow your veggies at home and what if it’s much more easier to take care than the other vegetables?
This is where you should try out Microgreens. Microgreens are young vegetable greens which are harvested at a young stage of its growth. To be more specific, just after they develop some baby cotyledon leaves. They are different from the sprouts which is the initial stage of plant growth. How are they different? Why are they being called ‘ the new Superfood’?
Nutrition
This ‘tiny plants’ comes packed with high nutrient concentrations. This includes Vitamin K, Vitamin C, lutein and a much more. All of these vital nutrients contribute towards a healthy immune system. The most interesting thing is that microgreens have better concentration of vital nutrients than its mature counterparts.
Taking care
If you’ve grown a plant once you might be familiar with the routines of it. Microgreens are mostly grown in moist environments and exposed to sunlight after germination. It can usually be harvested in 7-20 days depending on the type. You can grow them easily in your balcony, on the kitchen window sill or even as a vertical garden. They aren’t so messy as the normal plants. Moreover they increase the aesthetic beauty of your garden.
Diet
Unlike other veggies you can include the microgreens very easily in your diet. You can use them as a topping for your salad or even blend a smoothie with it. Who wouldn’t love a pizza with a crispy of twist of arugula leaves! Nutrient loss is only minimal as they dont’t require long cooking times.
Cancer prevention
Polyphenols are micronutrients which have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.This makes them important for lowering the risk of cancer. There are researches about using it against cancer and tumour treatment. Antioxidant plays a key role in elimination of body waste known as Free Radicals. Microgreens are a natural source of Polyphenols. You can include different types of polyphenol groups in your diet with microgreens.
Sustainable
Heated discussions about the carbon footprint of ‘everything’ are going on often nowadays. Microgreens can be considered sustainable because they involve much less space, pesticides and logistics than matured crops. This could be a reason for its increasing popularity. By using organic crops, composts and a an efficient watering system, it can be more eco-friendly.
There are plenty of research going around microgreens. In the Hollywood movie ‘The Martian’ we saw the lead character growing crops on mars. There was a similar Experiment in microgravity by NASA in 2015 called VEG-04 about using Microgreens for consumption in Long space travel. They concluded that microgreens are one of the major sources with high Nutrition. To summarise this doesn’t mean microgreens are the only solution for Nutrition problems. A balanced diet is the key to a healthy lifestyle. This means incorporating microgreens wisely with your diet.