Chinese cabbage

Swiss chard

Leaf vegetables, also called greens or leafy greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by tender petioles and shoots. Although they come from a very wide variety of plants, most share a great deal with other leaf vegetables in nutrition and cooking methods. Brassica rapa L.: Common Names: Celery cabbage, Chinese cabbage, Pe-tsai, Nappa Cabbage Description: Green leaves with broad pale green petioles, thick dense puckered texture. ... Brassica rapa L.: Common Names: Celery cabbage, Chinese cabbage, Pe-tsai, Nappa Cabbage Description: Green leaves with broad pale green petioles, thick dense puckered texture. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (779x841, 41 KB) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (779x841, 41 KB) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. ... Vegetables in a market Vegetable is a nutritional and culinary term denoting any part of a plant that is commonly consumed by humans as food, but is not regarded as a culinary fruit, nut, herb, or spice. ... A petiole (also called a pedicel) is the first abdominal segment of members of the Apocrita. ... A shoot is the fresh young growth of a plant stem. ... Nutrition is the study of the relationship between diet and states of health and disease. ... Cooking is the act of preparing food for consumption. ...

Leaf vegetables most often come from short-lived herbaceous plants such as lettuce and spinach. Woody plants whose leaves can be eaten as leaf vegetables include Adansonia, Aralia, Moringa, Morus, and Toona species. A herb (pronounced urb in American English and hurb in most varieties of Commonwealth English) is a plant grown for culinary, medicinal, or in some cases even spiritual value. ... Binomial name Lactuca sativa L. Lettuce is a temperate annual plant most often grown as a leaf vegetable. ... Binomial name Spinacia oleracea L. Spinach (Spinacia oleracea, Amaranthaceae) is a leaf vegetable. ... The baobabs (Adansonia) are a genus of eight species of trees, native to Madagascar (the centre of diversity, with six species), and Africa and Australia (one species in each). ... Species See text Aralia is a genus of the plant family Araliaceae, consisting of about 40 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs, and some rhizomatous perennials. ... Species Moringa arborea Moringa borziana Moringa concanensis Moringa drouhardii Moringa hilldebrandtii Moringa longituba Moringa oleifera Moringa ovalifolia Moringa peregrina Moringa pygmaea Moringa rivae Moringa ruspoliana Moringa stenopetala Moringa is the only genus in the family Moringaceae. ... Morus is actually the name of two completely unrelated genera: Morus the gannet, a seabird Morus the mulberry, a fruit tree This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... species Toona australis - Australian Redcedar Toona calantas - Philippine Mahogany Toona ciliata - Indian Mahogany Toona febrifuga - Vietnam Mahogany Toona sinensis - Chinese Mahogany Toona sureni - Indonesian Mahogany Toona is a genus of six species of trees in the mahogany family Meliaceae, native from eastern China south to India, southeast Asia and northern...

The leaves of many fodder crops are also edible by humans, but usually only eaten under famine conditions. Examples include alfalfa, clover, and most grasses, including wheat and barley. These plants are often much more prolific than more traditional leaf vegetables, but exploitation of their rich nutrition is difficult, primarily because of their high fiber content. This obstacle can be overcome by further processing such as drying and grinding into powder or pulping and pressing for juice. In agriculture, fodder or animal feed is any foodstuff that is used specifically to feed livestock, such as cattle, sheep, chickens and pigs. ... A famine is a phenomenon in which a large percentage of the population of a region or country are undernourished and death by starvation becomes increasingly common. ... Species Medicago arabica Medicago heldreichii Medicago hybrida Medicago laciniata Medicago littoralis Medicago lupulina Medicago minima Medicago monantha Medicago monspeliaca Medicago orbicularis Medicago polymorpha Medicago praecox Medicago rigidula Medicago rugosa Medicago ruthenica Medicago sativa Medicago scutellata Medicago secundiflora Medicago truncatula Medicago turbinata Ref: ITIS 183622 as of 2002-07-31 Alfalfa... Species See text Clover (Trifolium) is a genus of about 300 species of plants in the pea family Fabaceae. ... Subfamilies There are 7 subfamilies: Subfamily Arundinoideae Subfamily Bambusoideae Subfamily Centothecoideae Subfamily Chloridoideae Subfamily Panicoideae Subfamily Pooideae Subfamily Stipoideae The true grasses are monocotyledonous plants (Class Liliopsida) in the Family Poaceae, formerly also known as Gramineae. ... Species T. boeoticum T. durum T. monococcum T. spelta References:   ITIS 42236 2002-09-22 Wheat (Triticum spp. ... Binomial name Hordeum vulgare L. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a major food and animal feed crop, a member of the grass family Poaceae. ...

Nutrition

Leaf vegetables are typically low in calories, low in fat, high in protein per calorie, high in dietary fiber, high in iron and calcium, and very high in phytochemicals such as vitamin C, vitamin A, lutein and folic acid. Look up fat in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Fat is one of the three main classes of food and, at approximately 38 kJ (9 kilocalories) per gram, as compared to sugar with 17 kJ (4 kcal) per gram or ethanol with 29 kJ (7 kcal) per gram, the most concentrated... A representation of the 3D structure of myoglobin, showing coloured alpha helices. ... Dietary fibers are long-chain carbohydrates (polysaccharides) that are indigestible by the human digestive tract. ... General Name, Symbol, Number iron, Fe, 26 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 8, 4, d Appearance lustrous metallic with a grayish tinge Atomic mass 55. ... General Name, Symbol, Number calcium, Ca, 20 Chemical series alkaline earth metals Group, Period, Block 2, 4, s Appearance silvery white Atomic mass 40. ... Phytochemicals are sometimes referred to as phytonutrients and these terms are often used interchangeably. ... Vitamin C is a water-soluble nutrient essential for life, used by the human body for many purposes. ... Retinol, the dietary form of vitamin A, is a fat-soluble, antioxidant vitamin important in vision and bone growth. ... Lutein (LOO-teen) is one of over 600 known naturally occurring carotenoids. ... Folic acid (the anion form is called folate) is a B-complex vitamin (once called vitamin M) that is important in preventing neural tube defects (NTDs) in the developing human fetus. ...

Preparation

Most leaf vegetables can be eaten raw, for example in salads. They may be stir-fried, stewed or steamed. —Cleopatra, in Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra, 1606 A salad is a food item generally served either before or after the main dish as a separate course, as a main course in itself, or as a side dish accompanying the main dish. ... Stir frying is a common Chinese cooking technique used because of its fast cooking speed. ... A stew is a common food made of vegetables and meat in some sort of broth or sauce. ... Steaming is cooking by steam. ...

Leaf vegetables stewed with pork are a traditional dish in soul food, and southern U.S. cuisine. Hormel Pork Loin Filets This article is on meat. ... Soul food is an ethnic cuisine, food traditionally eaten by African Americans of the Southern United States. ... The Southern United States has a distinct cuisine that draws heavily on influences of the various groups that have inhabited the area. ...

External links

• Leaf for Life — lists of and information about many leaf vegetables