Vegetables
Moderate evidencePumpkin
2,790 µg of beta-carotene in 37 kcal per 100 g baked. Beta-carotene supplements, though, increased lung cancer in smokers.
Roasted pumpkin salad
Beta-carotene is fat-soluble and will not absorb without oil. Roasting in olive oil is not about flavour here — it is about absorption.
2 servings40 min
Ingredients
- Pumpkin1/2 (400 g)
- Pumpkin seeds30 g
- Baby spinach100 g
- Olive oil2 tbsp
- Balsamic vinegar1 tbsp
- Salt and pepperto taste
Method
Heat the oven to 200 °C.
Scrape out the seeds and cut the pumpkin with the skin on into 1.5 cm slices.
Toss with 1 tbsp of olive oil, salt and pepper, and spread on a tray in a single layer.
Roast 25–30 minutes, until the edges brown and a fork goes in easily.
Toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry pan over low heat for 2 minutes. Take them off as soon as they start popping.
Let the pumpkin cool 5 minutes. Put it on hot and the spinach wilts.
Lay the spinach on a plate, add the pumpkin, dress with the remaining oil and the balsamic, and scatter the seeds.
Cooking note
The oil is not optional here. Beta-carotene and lutein are fat-soluble and need fat present to be absorbed. Steamed plain, the same weight of pumpkin delivers far less of them.
Roast it with the skin. It softens well and the fibre stays.
Roasting drives off water and concentrates the sweetness — and the calories per 100 g with it. So it is more accurate to count pumpkin in the place of rice than as a free vegetable: 8.9 g of carbohydrate per 100 g.
Those 30 g of pumpkin seeds carry 165 mg of magnesium, 40–55 % of an adult's daily requirement. They are not a garnish; they are the densest thing on the plate.
Ingredients used here
Nuts & seeds
Moderate evidencePumpkin seeds
550 mg of magnesium and 7.6 mg of zinc per 100 g. The blood-pressure effect of magnesium, though, showed up only in people who already had hypertension.
Vegetables
Moderate evidenceSpinach
"Spinach equals iron" is only half true. The real value sits in folate, vitamin K, and the lutein that accumulates in your eyes.