The latest dietary guidelines for Americans state the average adult should be consuming around three cups of dark green leafy vegetables every week. Unfortunately, the average American tends to consume only one-third to one-half of that amount.

Packed with nutrients that help fight cancer and other serious diseases, dark green leafy vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet, whether you are fighting cancer or are simply trying to improve your diet to help prevent cancer.

What Vegetables are Included in this Category?

If you're not used to eating dark green leafy vegetables, it's easy to overlook them in the supermarket. Look for the following types of vegetables on your next trip, and try to incorporate more of these in your diet:

Swiss Chard
Kale
Collard Greens
Mustard Greens
Turnip Greens
Spinach
Romaine Lettuce
Chicory
Bok Choy

What Makes these Vegetables Cancer-Fighting Foods?

Dark green leafy vegetables are bursting with essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that provide important cancer-fighting benefits.

Beta-carotene, Lutein, and Zeaxanthin: All of these substances are powerful antioxidants that help protect the body against all forms of cancer by destroying free radicals. These free radicals are highly reactive oxygen compounds that can damage and destroy the body's cells. Cells that are damaged are more likely to become cancerous, and antioxidants play an extremely important role in ridding the body of these cancer-causing free radicals.

Folate: This nutrient is essential for the proper repair and replication of DNA. Without folate, damaged cells would be unable to repair their own DNA. Cells with damaged DNA are more likely to become malignant. In particular, folate is known to lower the risk of developing colon polyps (the forerunners of colon cancer) by up to 40%. Women who do not consume enough folate may also be at increased risk of developing breast, cervix, and lung cancer.

Phytochemicals: These powerful anti-cancer enzymes are present in dark green cruciferous vegetables such as bok choy and kale. Some phytochemicals boost levels of enzymes that help cleanse the body of carcinogens and block the activity of enzymes that are known to activate carcinogens. Other phytochemicals are able to help prevent DNA damage, and repair damage that does occur.

What are Other Health Benefits of Dark Green Leafy Vegetables?

Dark green leafy vegetables contain large amounts of magnesium and potassium, two minerals that most Americans generally lack in large enough quantities. Potassium is an essential mineral that is linked with proper blood pressure regulation and healthy heart function, while magnesium plays a role in regulating the body's levels of blood sugar.

These dark green veggies are also packed with vitamins K, C, E, and some vitamins of the B group. Vitamin K has recently been shown to be a very important substance for a variety of reasons. This vitamin is known to play a role in blood clotting, and is also thought to be involved in the prevention of diseases such as osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, arthritis, and diabetes.

Both zeaxanthin and lutein, in addition to being cancer-fighting agents, are also known to prevent degenerative eye diseases and cataracts. Beta-carotene is known to be important in enhancing the immune system, and may also play a role in promoting female reproductive health.

In addition to being important cancer-fighting agents, antioxidants are also known to play a role in preventing other signs of aging. Free radical damage contributes to the formation of wrinkles and lines in the skin, as well as other age-related cellular degeneration.

How to Get More Dark Green Leafy Vegetables in Your Diet

Another important reason many people do not eat enough dark green leafy vegetables is simply that they don't know how to cook or serve these delectible foods. Here are some quick and easy ways to cook these veggies and make them taste great:

Add young, tender leaves such as baby spinach to salads or sandwiches
Add greens to soups. The leaves can be wilted and added whole, or pureed along with other soup ingredients if you prefer. This is a great way of adding more of these vegetables to your diet when you are not used to the taste, as you can add some stronger-tasting ingredients such as garlic, onion, or pepper to make the taste of the greens not as strong.
Stir-fry with heart-healthy olive oil, along with onion or garlic, or spices such as ginger.
Add wilted, finely-chopped greens to mashed potatoes. This is another good choice if you're not used to the taste of greens (such as spinach and kale).

When cooking dark green leafy vegetables, remember that while light cooking can enhance your body's ability to absorb the essential nutrients they contain, over-cooking can actually destroy these nutrients. Greens such as spinach need only a minute or less of steaming or stir-frying, while tougher greens such as kale and collard usually need around 10-15 minutes.

Sources:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7421199/
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/fruits.html
http://www.uabhealth.org/15965/
http://www.hoptechno.com/book12.htm

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