Health : varieties of salads and their health benefits

Benefits of green salad: what do you need to know about green salads, what are the varieties and what are their advantages from a nutritional point of view? We can count nearly two thousand types of green salads. There is also a classification that separates green salads into families. We can count three: lettuce, chicory and small salads.

Salad green benefits: depending on the type of salad, are the benefits different?

Let's start with the varieties and clarify the differences to better navigate. First there is the family of lettuce. Lettuce is the largest family because there are several hundred varieties of lettuce. She is the most popular. There are lettuce butter lettuce and brown butter lettuce. It's a kind of subclassification. Blonde or brown butter lettuce has a mild flavor and melting texture.

Benefits of green salad: lettuce and its sub-variants

Apart from the blond and brown butter lettuces, there are the batavias. These are also blond and brown.

But there are also icebergs. The iceberg is a variety in itself. It includes the Ice Queen or Frisée de Beauregard, the Balmoral, the Blonde de Paris or the Great Lakes. The following variety of lettuce is the one that grows after first picking. Hence their name of lettuce to cut. They do not have the shape of an apple (it is called a pommée form), unlike lettuce butter and batavias. Their leaves grow, on the contrary, differently. According to the sub-varieties of this variety, their shape can change.

The Oak Leaf represents a third submanifold. There are blond oak leaves and brown oak leaves. Browns vary from green to carmine red. They have a subtle taste of hazelnut. The fome of their leaves is slightly serrated.

Other sub-varieties of lettuce

Lollo is a lettuce that looks a lot like oak leaf. The lollo also exists in blond or brown variety.

Romaine lettuce is the next sub-variety. It is famous for its crunchy texture. Where does his name come from? Well, it was introduced in France in the city of Avignon at the time when the city was the city of the popes. Romaine lettuce is green, very green, with long, narrow, ribbed leaves. The rib is a fine protrusion that runs through the leaf. So, to recognize it, you have to look to see its ribs.

Finally, there are fat lettuces. They are called in this way because their leaves are thick, smooth and melting. The most popular are the Sucrine and the Rougette. The first has a slightly sweet taste, hence its name.

Benefits of green salad: chicory and its sub-variants

We recognize the escarole, the curly, the trévise and endive. The three have a particular taste that reminds of the bitter taste. The escarole has crisp and finely bitter leaves.

Chicory with white or yellow heart, the curly leaves have fine and serrated leaves. Its color evolves. From the heart to the ends, its color changes from yellow to green.

Treviso is a wild chicory. He who is not a connoisseur may be mistaken and take the treviso for a lettuce. Its false air of lettuce hides a strong pepper taste.

Endive is a huge bud, XXL size. It is a variety of chicory with succulent long, white leaves edged with red or yellow. Its bitter taste is more or less pronounced.

Salad green benefits: small salads and their sub-variants

Chews, rocket, watercress, mesclun, purslane, dandelion and spinach are recognized. The lamb's lettuce is a salad that grows in winter. Available all year, it is produced mainly in the Nantes region. Its nutty flavor has made it very popular. It grows as bunches of small green leaves.

The arugula has a more intense and rather peppery taste. Inseparable from the Italian cuisine, it brings tonicity to salads, pizzas and other dishes. It is still lending, since antiquity, aphrodisiac virtues.

Watercress has a very special flavor, both peppery and tart. It is added to soups, used in salads or put in an omelette.

Salad green benefits: the mesclun

The mesclun is an assortment of several types of young red and green shoots. Mesclun or mesclar means mixing. Hence the number seven of the varieties of shoots that are found there. It includes rocket and chervil. Originally from Nice, mesclun can contain a variety of chicory, as well as lettuce, but also lamb's lettuce, batavia, oak leaves, rocket, purslane, dandelion, spinach sprouts, chervil.

What is purslane? Consumed in Egypt 4000 years ago, this creeping grass with red stems gives fleshy and crunchy leaves with a tangy taste.

What is dandelion? Its bitter taste does not make it very popular. It is a wild herb that true connoisseurs appreciate.

Salad green benefits, what are they?

The green salad is a vegetable. Each of its varieties has health benefits. But the virtues are still hierarchical. At the top, we find the red or green curly lettuce. It has strengths like antioxidants and especially carotenoids. These play an important role in preventing cancer. Carotenoids stimulate communication between cells.

The Roman salad contains calcium, fiber, vitamin K and vitamin C. Vitamin C can also be found in the lamb's lettuce. This contains 12.5 mg per 100 gr. It's five times more than the carrot.

The iceberg that most people consume and enjoy is the least nutritious. It contains 13 times less carotenoids than leaf lettuce.

Do not forget to eat the salad with vinaigrette because the lipids allow the salad to better release its nutrients that the body will absorb better.