Healthy Lifestyles for 2020: The Health Benefits of Microgreens

Healthy Lifestyles for 2020: The Health Benefits of Microgreens

Microgreens health benefits vary from plant to plant, but as the trend of microgreens in the health food communities rapidly increases in the United States and globally, people want to better understand the health benefits of these baby veggies.
If you're not familiar, microgreens are baby vegetables and categorized as simply a phase in the plants life. Here are the different phases: 
  • Phase 1 - Sprouts (2-5 days old)
  • Phase 2 - Microgreens (10-21 days old)
  • Phase 3 - Baby greens (15-40 days old)
  • Phase 4 - the mature plant (45-150 days old) 

Microgreens health benefits microtea broccoli kale baby veggies baby vegetables nutrition plants vitamins minerals nutrients anti oxidants

The plant never has more key nutrients, minerals, vitamins and antioxidants than around the 14-day mark in phase 2–in microgreen phase!
Because microgreens are so beautiful and add a pop of fresh flavor, they have been mostly used as a garnish at high-end restaurants. However, over the past few years, researches and health-food advocates have started to notice their tremendous benefits for health. It's also easy to sneak them into smoothies, sandwiches, salads and much more.
While plants can vary widely in their nutrition, studies show microgreens can contain many times more micronutrients and minerals than their adult counterparts! Typical results are 6-70X milligrams more micronutrients per serving.
A team of scientists from the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture analyzed the nutrient composition of 25 microgreens varieties and found that cotyledon leaves (first leaves of a seedling) had higher composition of nutrients than in the mature plant.

Here's an example–red cabbage microgreens have:
  • 6X  more vitamin C in microgreens, 147 mg, or 245% daily value, in contrast to adult red cabbage at 57 mg.
  • 40X more vitamin E in microgreens
  • 69X more vitamin K in microgreens

Many of us are nutritionally deficient because it's hard to get all the vitamins and minerals your body needs every single day. Eating microgreens is an easy way to bridge that gap and make sure you're getting everything you need to grow, heal and maintain your body. 

More vegetables = more of the good stuff your body needs. If you need a super-easy way to add microgreens to every meal, try our new Broccoli Booster–there's 10,000 broccoli microgreens in every tin! 

Growing microgreens with pink stem

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