Health Benefits of Chayote: Essential Nutrients in Your Plate
Health benefits of chayote have been a buzz among the vegetables in the food shelf. There are trivia that chayote has plenty of nutrients, with potent anti-inflammatory ingredients. And most of us are looking out for foods with an anti-inflammatory.
Health benefits of chayote are essential for those with inflammatory diseases like high blood pressure, kidney stones, health condition and digestion problem. Studies show that chayote is also an excellent food for weight loss.
A better understanding of chayote is what we need. So we have here the top health benefits of chayote and why you need it to include in your meal.
Helps indigestion
When it comes to fiber, chayote is on our top list. Why? It is justifiable because chayote contains almost 15% of fiber as a daily requirement. Therefore, when you need to work with your digestion, especially during constipation, just pick a few pieces of chayote in the supermarket, and you can have a good source of fiber.
Lowers cholesterol
One of the right reasons why chayote is essential in our meal plan is because it lowers cholesterol in our body. When bad cholesterol increases in our body, the effects resulted in getting high blood pressure. Thereby, in eating chayote, it improves our cardiovascular system and prevents related diseases.
Controls blood sugar level
An increase in blood sugar level is one of the common health conditions that most of us are unaware of acquiring. From our eating lifestyle nowadays, type-2 diabetes is one of the health problems that we need to avoid. Eating healthy foods like chayote can be a good option for you. From the excellent fiber contents of chayote, it can be your one ticket to control the blood sugar level.
Improves weight loss
Losing weight has been a goal for each of us and reaching our ideal weight can be a struggle. But with chayote, this little problem when it comes to weight loss can be resolved. Chayote contains high water content aside from fiber. It will make you feel fuller, which will prevent you from eating a lot of calories.
Good source of vitamins and minerals
Our body does not only need fiber but also vitamins and minerals are essential. Vitamins like folate and vitamin C are what we get from eating chayote. Then, one of the health benefits of chayote is giving the nutrients that pregnant women need. The folate found in chayote can reduce the risk of congenital disabilities for babies.
While vitamin C is known to be essential in our health, the one we can get from eating chayote gives us antioxidants as well. We can have almost 30 percent of vitamin C from our recommended daily requirement. It is a good source if we aim to increase our immune system.
Other than vitamins, some of the health benefits of chayote are amounts of minerals, which can help our body to stay healthy and active. These minerals, like calcium, potassium, phosphorus and magnesium, are essential in our body to function well. For instance, chayote contains zinc, which heals our wound in healing and responsible for maintaining a proper sense of taste and smell.
Food substitute using the health benefits of chayote
Since chayote has many nutrients that we can have, it can also be used as a food substitute in making butternut or spaghetti. Instead of using squash, chayote is the perfect replacement. It has no cholesterol content, but it is high in fiber and water content.
When looking for a healthy meal, using chayote can be significant health. Some recipes include chayote. It can be your breakfast, lunch or dinner recipes. The plant chayote can be eaten only when you cooked it. The entire chayote is edible, so when you want to include it in your meal, you can choose from using the flesh, flower, roots, leaves, and the skin.
If you want to enjoy your breakfast with chayote, you can add chayote with your oats, peanut butter or to your morning smoothies. The meaty texture of chayote is a perfect combination with your usual morning meal. The taste of chayote, which is a little sweet, can be an excellent factor to include as your spread with your sandwich. It gives you a healthier breakfast, after all.
When it comes to the preparation of your lunch, you can add chayote to your salad dressing. You can add chayote in every kind of salad. It can add flavor and depth to the taste of your ordinary salad. So you can have other choices.
How about chayote for snacks? Like your other favorite vegetables, you can also have chayote as your snack. It can be a suitable replacement for honeydew or jicama. It is not a complicated recipe. You will need to replace the honeydew or jicama or the ingredients the same as the characteristics of chayote. Then you can have a version of your snack in chayote.
Other ways to enjoy the health benefits of chayote
Indeed, the health benefits of chayote are unbelievable. You can eat it in many ways, aside from making it as the main dish or side dish.
You can also enjoy chayote by substituting it with your favorite squash and potatoes. Try some recipes with squash or potatoes then replace it with chayote. In this way, you can enjoy chayote, and it will never be the same boring vegetables.
And you will notice the effects of eating chayote. The health benefits of chayote can be countless and experienced in many ways. All you have to do is to be creative and enjoy every bite of chayote to help you feel and look healthy.
