Starting Sunday, October 12 @ 11:59 PM, until Sunday, October 19 11:59 PM  your challenge is to ...

Eat 1 Serving of Leafy Green Vegetables Daily

Leafy green vegetables have great nutritional value that includes vitamincs A,C, E, and K and antioxidants that helps slow down or prevent damage to our cells. Some examples include collard green, dark green leafy lettuce, spinach, and kale.

What is the serving size?
1 cup raw and 1/2 cup cooked vegetables equals 1 serving size

How do we incorporate them into our diet?
Salad with low fat dressing . Bake them into crispy chips such as baked kale chips. Cook them with herbs and spices as side dishes . Consume them in a green smoothie form. Whole wheat pasta or home made pizza with finely chopped spinach or kale. Add them to soups, sandwiches, or wraps Lightly stir fry them or steam them.

How to conserve the most nutrients or increase the absorption?

• Do not cook these vegetables with closed lids to conserve the color.
• Do not use any baking soda - it alters the color of the vegetables.
• These vegetables do get cooked very fast, try to avoid overcooking them.
• You can maximize the absorption of nutrients if these vegetables are cooked with Vitamin C rich foods.
• Spinach could be cooked with tomatoes or lime juice, or a spinach salad can be consumed with a glass of 100% orange juice.

Salad Recipe - Cranberry Spinach Salad Ingredients:

• 1 lb baby spinach
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 3/4 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup 100% orange juice
• 1/8 tsp black pepper powder

Directions : In a large salad bowl, combine the spinach with the roasted flaked almonds and cranberries.
In a medium bowl, whisk white wine vinegar, olive oil, and black pepper powder. Toss everything together right before serving.




Suggested Reading:
Leafy Greeens - Ranked & Rated - Learn more.

This challenge was closed on 10/19/2014

The Weekly Health Challenge is a self-audited program designed to motivate the JCSC Wellness participants in reducing BMI on a weekly basis.

How it works:

1. Each week there will be a new health challenge. You can accept the challenge by accepting the pledge for each challenge. You can only accept a challenge from midnight on Sunday to midnight on Tuesday.

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