Vegetables

This is my essay I wrote about vegetables. Hope you enjoy!

Vegetables

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When your parents tell you to eat your vegetables, have you ever wondered about why we need to eat them? Hopefully, after you’ve read my article about vegetables, you might find the answers to your questions. Read on to discover the wonderful world of vegetables!

Types of vegetables

There are many types of vegetables, with all different sizes, shapes and colors. The eggplant, for example, is purple, and looks like a banana. And asparagus is green and looks like a spear! When you buy vegetables at the supermarket, select a wide variety so you can enjoy all their benefits and taste new things! Always remember that a delicious vegetable can look very weird!

Nutrients

Some of the nutrients inside vegetables include potassium, dietary fibre, folic acid, and vitamins A and C. Vitamin A is essential for the eye because the antioxidant compounds that make up vitamin A help protect the cornea, the surface of our eye, which is important for good eyesight.

In addition, vitamin C can prevent a lethal disease called scurvy, caused by lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). When people get scurvy, they experience anemia, debility, exhaustion, and edema (swelling) in some parts of the body.

Also, vegetables that have a deeper/darker green color (e.g spinach, kangkong, broccoli, bell peppers and kiwifruit) will contain more vitamin C than vegetables with only a light green color.

    Popular vegetables’ dietary fiber and vitamin C content

Vegetable	Dietary fiber content (per 100g)	Vitamin C content (per 100g)
Broccoli	2.6 g	89.2 mg
Water spinach (aka kangkong)	2.1 g	55 mg
Spinach	2.2 g	28.1 mg
Cabbage	2.5 g	36.6 mg
Potato	2.2 g	19.7 mg

Health Benefits

So you have heard about the nutrients in vegetables. Perhaps a more important side of eating vegetables is their health benefits. For example, dietary fibre from vegetables helps reduce blood cholesterol levels and may lower risk of heart disease. Potassium, which is also found in vegetables, helps to maintain healthy blood pressure levels. Also, folic acid helps our bodies to make red blood cells.

Pregnant women should consume adequate folate from foods, with 400 mcg of synthetic folic acid from fortified foods or supplements. This reduces the risk of neural tube defects, spina bifida, and anencephaly during fetal development.

Conclusion

Because eating vegetables can save us from disease, keep us strong, give us health benefits and good nutrients, we should really start eating more vegetables.