Your Guide To Spring Foods - Page 14

As the colors outside shift, so do those in the grocery store produce section. You’ll start seeing fruits and veggies that you perhaps don’t know what to do with—or maybe you lost all your recipes for them from last spring! The fact is you should be enjoying produce when it is in season because hat’s when it’s at its best! So here’s your guide to the colorful, fiber-ful goodies at your local market.

Snow peas

Delicious cooked or raw, snow peas require no shelling so they’re perfect when you want a lazy snack. These little veggies are also 25% protein, so eating just one cup can stabilize your blood sugar for a few hours. Have them solo, in salads, or in sauté dishes.

Peppermint

You don’t often think of a green leaf when you think Peppermint, but this ingredient that flavors our favorite candies is also an appetite suppressant. Add a tablespoon of fresh peppermint leaves to a salad or beverage, and you’ll feel fuller faster. The secret is this: peppermint stimulates the region of your brain that makes you feel satisfied. Just another reason we pop peppermint candies after a meal.

Butter lettuce

This soft, slightly sweet lettuce is perfect when you’re craving a light meal. Five compressed cups of the stuff still wouldn’t carry the calories of a single slice of bread. Since the flavor is mild, you can go easy on the dressing because there are no bitter tastes to neutralize like in other lettuces. Scratch and sniff the stalk to discover how sweet the leaves will taste.

Ginger

Adding just one teaspoon of freshly chopped ginger to your meal—maybe in a stir fry or part of a ginger dressing—will make you feel full almost twice as fast. It’s also a great anti-inflammatory and painkiller.

Watercress

A great item to diversify your salads, watercress contains only two calories per half cup. It also packs magnesium, phosphorous and B complex vitamins, which work as detoxifiers.

Tamarillos

For those who enjoy a little spice, pick up these mini tomato look-alikes. They each contain only 30 calories, and plenty of anthocyanin’s—the antioxidants associated with killing cancer cells and reducing bad cholesterol. Try the spicy stuff with cheese, or in salads.

Plums

You’ll find them all over Farmers Markets this time of year, and you should be loading up a bag. Packed with soluble fiber, just one plum can suppress your appetite. Consuming two to three a day could cut down your overall calorie intake by 20%. Plums also contain components that promote eye health.

Baby lettuce

Just one cup of these small leaves packs a ton of vitamin K—a vitamin essential for bone strength—and only five calories. It’s totally fat-free and stocked in most markets at springtime.

Bok Choy

Bok Choy, along with other Asian Greens like Chinese mustard greens and Napa cabbage—are a dieter’s dream. They get their color from chlorophyll, a pigment that fortifies the liver, helping it burn fat and turn it into fuel.

Shitake mushrooms

Don’t be put off by their alien appearance. These smoky flavored mushrooms add loads of flavor to meat dishes, soup, stir fries and stews. Plus with their dose of selenium, they help your body convert fat into fuel.

Green onions

Besides their cheery spring color, we love green onions because they don’t cause you to tear up when you chop them, you can eat the entire thing—bulb and stalk—and they help your pancreas convert carbs into fuel, instead of fat.

Asian pears

These are the model refreshing fruit, with a cool, crisp inside bursting with sweet waters, a slightly sour skin and hold-able shape of an apple. Eating just one of these sweet fruits a day can help you consume nearly 200 fewer calories daily.

Zucchini

Loaded with fiber, zucchini can kill hunger faster than fatty snacks like peanut butter or regular yogurt. Their barely-there flavor makes them perfect to add to any salad, or bake and stuff them with a variety of ingredients from ground turkey to soft cheeses.