List of Leaf Vegetables | Hacker News Reader

List of Leaf Vegetables

en.wikipedia.org

38 pointsmooreds21 comments

A while ago, I embarked on the journey to find the most nutritious vegetable to eat. Web searches led to dead ends on shitty blogs, men's magazines and a whole bunch of anecdotal "nutritionists" claiming authoritatively this or that. Usually, something in fashion like Kale at the time. How do you cut through the BS and navigate through anti-Lettuce propagandists?

I found some interesting studies from CDC and one of them I happen to have bookmarked which ranks common veggies by their nutrition "score"* [1].

The results might surprise you!

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4049200/

* Of course this is not a definitive "scoring" strategy and depending on the scoring method, the results might vary wildly. The author delves into this.

It is really infuriating trying to search for health-related information online, especially if it's also a foodstuff, since you surface a lot of recipes as well as fad diets and "superfood" pseudoscience.

I remember reading a while ago that sweet potato was an important staple used in Asia to avert famines due to bad rice harvest and that just sweet potato and bok choy can get you most of the essential nutrition you need. But now I cannot find the sources.

It's good to see bok choy listed at the top of this table, since I try to eat that once a day. Personally I choose to eat fairly simply and mostly plant-based, so I am always interested to learn about cost-effective and nutritionally dense staples and greens.

I found this site useful: https://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000138000000000000000-1...

What a list of wonderful names!

Examples:

* Lamb's Quarters * Good King Henry * Siberian spring beauty * Spotted Cat's-ear * Fishwort * John's Cabbage * Shawnee Salad * Dragon's head * Henbit deadnettle * Nipplewort * Gooseneck Loosestrife * Love-restorer

I now looking forward to exclaiming:

"You miserable henbit deadnettle!"

"They are nothing more than a group of lazy nippleworts..."

What has most struck me most, from recent pubs on the topic, is how far away spinach is, genetically, from almost everything else. It makes me feel justified in avoiding spinach.

I guess spinach is especially cheap to grow. People used to think (and print) that it had more iron than others, and many probably still believe it, which probably inflates its market.

A recent surprise was that radicchio, a favorite, is a chicory, also (but less) distant from others.

you missinterpreted that graph; spinach, chards, celery, parsley, letucce, endive, watercress, brassica, all are in Eudicots order. The outliers are scallions (onions, garlic etc.) that are in Monocots order.

How about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_by_common_name ? But, really, I'm waiting for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_physically_extant_obje...

"This is a list of vegetables which are grown or harvested primarily for the consumption of their leafy parts"

Cauliflower? Quinoa? Broccoli? Sweet potato?

Canonical lists always continue into ad absurdum.

But we always got more leaves off our sweet potato than tuberous roots due to mammals eating the roots.

Which since sweet potato is so cheap to buy worked out ok.

Cauliflower and broccoli, at least, have leaves that are absolutely harvestable and produce quite a bit depending on their cultivar. Yes, they also produce a delicious flower, but the leaves and stems are also a foodstuff.

Edit: In fact, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, and kale are all the same species.

But this is explicitly a list of plants that are primarily grown for their leaves.

More fun reading about the wildly diverse B. Oleracea species: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea

Some footnotes.

The bitter Lactuca serriola must not be confused with the similar, but poisonous Lactuca virosa, unless you have some confidence in your botanic skills I would suggest to avoid both species

The list lacks of an entire group of fine vegetables that don't have real leaves but are used in a similar way and are widely cultured by millions of tons each year as human food: algae.

I'm looking for a leafy vegetable that I can use raw in salads and grows well in the summer in our climate (midwest US). Lettuces and spinach bolt in the heat, the chards I've tried are too acidic tasting (due to their oxalic acid content), and kale always gets plastered with aphids. Any suggestions?

We accidentally succeeded in growing lacinato kale but not red russian kale last summer - our aphids greatly prefer the red russian kale, so in a mixed garden bed the lacinato kale was mostly untouched. We're in the PNW, so your experience (and aphids) may vary.

Lacinato kale is tough, but I like it in a salad after massaging it with a bit of sea salt and olive oil to start breaking it down some.

Radicchio? But you can provide shade pretty cheaply.

If your temperature is 100 F in the shade, it's just pretty difficult to grow good greens. Not impossible, but difficult.

temperature range?

red orach?

A quite relevant article posted here a couple weeks ago also examining the vegetables whose leaves we eat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25914008

Much more informative and interesting: http://www.whfoods.org/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com