What’s So Great About Swiss Chard

My doctor is a pusher. No, no not that kind of pusher (in fact she’s a little skimpy with the drugs…which I’m told is a good thing!) but she regularly “suggests” I eat more greens. And then I regularly pass that information on to my clients, because I am a health professional ahthankyouverymuch. But I have this one client who just doesn’t seem to take my advice to heart. For the sake of privacy we’ll just call her “me”. But I’m going to lay down the law with me and insist she ups her intake of greens and if she refuses, I may just have to lose her as a client (ok, this is getting confusing). All the leafy greens are chock full of nutrition but Swiss chard deserves a reserved spot in your grocery cart. Here’s why.

Sharon Palmer is a dietician and the author of The Plant-Powered Diet. In a recent Self Magazine article she suggested we should all ”incorporate at least a few servings a week of green leafy vegetables. One of her favorites is Swiss chard in all its varieties. “Packed with nutrients such as vitamin K, A, and C, chard also contains powerful phytochemicals that act as antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and may help the body in its natural detoxification process.” According to Worlds Healthiest Foods, “Swiss chard is not only one of the most popular vegetables along the Mediterranean but it is one of the most nutritious vegetables around and ranks second only to spinach following our analysis of the total nutrient-richness of the World’s Healthiest vegetables, containing 13 different antioxidants”.  They recommend quickly boiling or steaming chard to “reduce its oxalic acid content” and suggest only eating the stems of the white varieties as the red are quite tough.

And while, yes, Swiss chard is green, and therefore automatically suspect to certain small people among us, the good news is, it has a mild flavor and it hides/blends so sneakily in sauces (like pizza or pasta sauce), pureed soups, mac and cheese and chili.