Benefits Of Red Cabbage + Incredibly Tasty And Easy Recipe
Violets. I’m here to talk about the benefits of red cabbage and why you need to start incorporating it NOW into your diet.
Don’t worry– I’m going to give you the most insane and tasty recipe. It’s only 3 ingredients and so so easy. You’ll want to make it all the time! I’m telling you… it. is. DELICIOUS.So you know there are three things I eat for: skin, gut, and LIVER.
This one mainly has to do with the liver.
RED CABBAGE IS SO GOOD FOR YOUR LIVER.
I can’t stress how important liver health is. It has to do with combating diseases and get this– a SLOW liver results in an aging body. Your body WILL age quicker with a sluggish liver. So you need to look out for it.
Red cabbage is a giant hug for your liver.
I have done a TON of research and red cabbage is one of the most nutrient-dense vegetables out there.
As I tell you all the time, don’t eat to get skinny, eat to live a VERY LONG and VERY STRONG healthy life. Go into the next few decades with HEALTH on your side!
The Benefits of Red Cabbage:
Red cabbage promotes immunity from having such high Vitamin C content. Your liver is TIED to your immune system (when things go bad- it is often your liver cells being attacked.) We need to be eating vitamin C rich foods. This is one of the most vitamin C packed vegetables on the planet. (Also– if you take collagen, it works best when paired with a HIGH vitamin C diet! Just FYI.)
Red cabbage is VERY HIGH in its antioxidant profile. Again- we need to be mopping up free radicals in our body left and right. Free radicals WILL go after your liver. Getting tons of anti-oxidants helps prevent this and also clean up existing damage.
Red Cabbage is great for inflammation. We should also be thinking about inflammation because it’s so easy to constantly have flare-ups within the body. So easy to have these stressors going on that perhaps we aren’t even aware of. Here is why red cabbage is a great anti-inflammatory. It contains phytonutrients and one of those compounds is sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is a powerful inflammation killer. Food is medicine!
Red Cabbage fights off disease. A weak liver means you are susceptible to disease. A weak liver is a key indicator that disease will be on the horizon for you. Because of the high number of anti-oxidants, a diet rich with plants like red cabbage will help strengthen your liver and thus help prevent disease. Check out this one study:
“In a laboratory study from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, researchers compared antioxidant potential of six plants high in anthocyanins (flavonoid pigments that give plants a blue, red or violet hue). Red cabbage, along with four of the other five plants, had significant antioxidant activity and successfully protected against one type of internal DNA damage” –Dr. Axe
Red Cabbage is great for the gut. I’ve said it before- your gut is linked to your liver! I love this excerpt from the Medical Medium which details the many benefits red cabbage has when it comes to your gut:
“Red cabbage is an ideal food for a healthy digestive tract as it is known to help reduce bad bacteria and promote good friendly bacteria (such as acidophilus) in the gut. Red cabbage is particularly beneficial for the nervous system and has even been shown to help reduce the buildup of plaque in the brain that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease. It is also an excellent food for ulcers, osteoporosis, constipation, heart disease, candida, age-related macular degeneration, fibromyalgia, dementia, and weight loss.” –Medical Medium
Red cabbage is RICH in Vitamin K. This one is a bonus as it has more has to do with bones– so we want a lot of vitamin K. Vitamin K is not in a ton of vegetables just FYI. At least not in a rich dose like red cabbage provides (just one cup is 42% of your daily needs.) Vitamin K is a foundation for healthy bones! We want high bone density as we age and one way to get that is to eat a lot of Vitamin K rich food.
Awesome resources for evidence to start:
Dr. AxeMedical MediumU.S National Library of MedicineHarvard Health
Hopefully I have convinced you how AMAZING red cabbage is.
Red Cabbage Recipe
Seasoned Tahini Red Cabbage
What you need:
Half a cabbage
2 tablespoons of tahini
Oil or oil spray
A dash of seasoning (my favorite is Everything But The Bagel seasoning from Trader Joes!)
Directions:
1. Cut your cabbage into lots of little strips
2. Spray a big pan with oil
3. Toss the cabbage into the pan and lightly coat all the cabbage
4. Heat it up for about 5 minutes, stirring often. (Can even put a lid on it)
5. Get it so that it is still very much crunchy and not flimsy. (You don’t want to overcook and lose nutrients)
6. Splatter 2 tablespoons of tahini onto the red cabbage
7. Throw in your seasoning (can also throw in after)
8. Stir it up and serve! This is a great side dish or great in bowls! And it is even better the next day.
I like to let my cabbage sit under the lid for a few minutes to really steam it up.
This adds such a unique flavor profile to the cabbage!
I like to throw in the tahini while it’s still cooking (right at the end) the warmed up tahini makes it easier to spread around.
There is nothing better than Everything But The Bagel seasoning from Trader Joes!!! Holy crap I like it on everything.
Enjoy!!!
