In response to the post on how to grow lettuce, especially throughout the summer, Anonymous (the most prolific commenter on this blog) asked:
“I know that it tastes good, but why would anyone go to the trouble to plant something that takes more calories to chew than you get out of it? Like celery.”
And that is a terrific question.
My reason for growing it is that is how I was raised—not growing it in a garden, of course, but having salad as part of every dinner. Year-round. At least through all my teen years, and now it’s what I do in my family. I get that it’s not that important to some people and cultures within this country. Becky served an 18-month mission in Texas and Louisiana where the members there fed her dinner every evening. She had exactly two green salads her entire time there. Being raised as she was, it was a sore trial.
While that’s how I was raised and how I raised my family, that’s not a good reason for others to grow lettuce. So here are a few more reasons:
1. Nutrition. Have you ever heard the saying, “Calories are king, but nutrition is queen”? Yes, lettuce doesn’t offer much in the way of calories, but calories aren’t everything. Lettuce is nutritious! Consider the following from Steve Solomon, author of Gardening When It Counts:
“Dark green looseleaf varieties grown on properly balanced mineral-rich soils have been tested at nearly 20 percent protein, almost as high as some forms of flesh food. And unlike meat, salads are eaten raw, so are far more digestible than cooked flesh. Iceberg and other ball-heading types with blanched cores, lacking high-protein chlorophyll, are much less healthful.”[i]
Nailing down the vitamin and mineral content of lettuce gets a bit tricky. For one thing, it seems like a lot of researchers don’t want to go on record. When you google “looseleaf lettuce nutrition facts,” you ought to get a pretty straightforward answer, right? The problem is serving sizes vary, for one thing. And then what isn’t much mentioned is the effect soil fertility exerts. Healthy soils grow healthy food.[ii] All the sources agree that lettuce is a fantastic source of vitamins A and K and a good source of folate, manganese, and calcium. It contains lesser amounts of vitamins C, E, all of the B’s (except B-12), copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc.[iii] [iv]
2. Health benefits.
Researchers found that in patients with severe or end stage renal disease lettuce consumption reduced the degree of itching better than pharmaceuticals.[v] Studies have shown that lettuce exerts anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, cardioprotective, neuroprotective, and hepatoprotective effects.[vi] The article reviewing these studies is an absolute firehose of highly technical information.
3. Garden benefits. As mentioned in the article on using plant diversity to eliminate garden pests, planting a wide variety of vegetables, flowers, and fruits from different families helps eliminate garden pests and grows healthier food. Lettuce makes an attractive addition to the landscape and it’s easy to tuck the seedlings in just about anywhere.
If the above has sufficiently persuaded Anonymous or anyone else of the virtues of growing (and eating) lettuce, what varieties are most nutritious? As you may know, there are hundreds or even thousands of varieties of lettuce. In general, the most nutritious is romaine lettuce, followed by looseleaf, and then butter. Iceberg is universally dissed, much to the sorrow of my husband.
Dark green leaves are healthier than pale green. Red leaf lettuces, including romaine, contain anthocyanins which are also healthy. Lettuce grown at home on rich, healthy soil and eaten directly after harvesting is the most nutritious of all.
Links to related posts:
Using Plant Diversity to Eliminate Garden Pests
How to Grow Perfect Lettuce All Summer Long
[i] Steve Solomon, Gardening When It Counts,
[ii] M Shi, et al., Phytochemicals, Nutrition, Metabolism, Bioavailability, and Health Benefits in Lettuce-A Comprehensive Review. Antioxidants (Basel). 2022 Jun 13;11(6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9219965/ (accessed 3 February 2024).
[iii] Bobbi Luttjohann, Permaculture Research Institute, 8 August 2017, https://www.permaculturenews.org/2017/08/08/loose-leaf-lettuce/ (accessed 3 February 2024).
[iv] https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/169249/wt1 (accessed 3 February 2024).
[v] M Shi, et al., Phytochemicals, Nutrition, Metabolism, Bioavailability, and Health Benefits in Lettuce-A Comprehensive Review. Antioxidants (Basel). 2022 Jun 13;11(6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9219965/ (accessed 3 February 2024).
[vi] M Shi, et al., Phytochemicals, Nutrition, Metabolism, Bioavailability, and Health Benefits in Lettuce-A Comprehensive Review. Antioxidants (Basel). 2022 Jun 13;11(6) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9219965/ (accessed 3 February 2024).
I googled the Irish potato vs iceberg and romaine.
ReplyDeleteIceberg was the loser of the three way nutrition brawl.
Romaine at least had some folate and other useful amounts of vitamins that the potato was lacking.
Sweet potato leaves, pea leaves, young bean leaves (you can harvest up to 10% of their leaves without affecting harvest) beet greens and so on more often than not are superior in calories as well as vitamins than Romaine.
You can Dehydrate beet greens, Spinach, Kale, collards and so on for use later in the non-lettuce seasons for soup and stew add ins with LITTLE LOSS of Vit C if low heat dehydration. Try that with romaine.
The "Superiority" of Lettuces in general were and I quote "A Dieters dream, higher water content, filling and low calorie".
Salads if you look at basic foods eaten across this old world are almost a purely overfed AMERICAN situation.
Greens are GOOD. The more taste and darker tend to be the most nutritious. Dandelions are AWESOME across the board.
I don't have the garden space for iceberg, I do plant some romaine.
The key for growing highly nutritious lettuce, which perhaps I didn't emphasize enough, is that the soil must be truly fertile soil as Steve Solomon outlines in his book. I experience the difference every year. My diet is basically the same year-round; the only change is the source of the veggies--the garden or the grocery store. When I'm eating from the garden, I don't need the mineral supplements that I have to take the rest of the year. And I eat more salad than anything else.
DeleteAlso, when lettuce is grown as I learned how to do it last year, it's harvested before it ever has a chance to become bitter due to the summer heat.
It never occurred to me that some people could have troubles growing lettuce. I've been doing it here in the desert for years (though not doing well with it in summer), and I grew it all the years we lived in Missouri. It grew really well there in the spring.
One distinct advantage lettuce has is the speed with which it grows. You can get a good harvest of highly nutritious food long before carrots, beans, and potatoes even dream of being ready.
We all have to do what works best for our particular situation. TEOTWAWKI isn't a one-size-fits-all thing.
If you want to talk about speed of production as a TEOTWAWKI advantage (and it is) Swiss Chard and many other dark greens grow from seed faster than Lettice for 100 gram servings.
DeleteDifferences between Chard and Lettuce Chard has more Vitamin K, Iron, Magnesium, Copper, Vitamin E, Potassium, and Vitamin C, while Lettuce has more Folate, and Vitamin A RAE. Chard's daily need coverage for Vitamin K is 168% higher. Lettuce contains 9 times less Vitamin E than Chard.
I could bore you with how there is more calories, protein and all that in Chard vs Lettice but it's your diet.
Outside of overfed America, my travels across this globe as a missionary in Africa, South America and the Philippines you will not see the American salad outside a western (read American) style hotel.
Incomplete comment, also I have Kale and Swiss Chard growing outside in the hoop house. Happily, since I shoveled a path through the last snow it's an easy harvest for a side salad tonight.
DeleteHave nearly zero success growing Lettice here.
I wonder if it's a regional thing. I've never grown chard. I don't think I know anyone who grows chard. (And I don't care for kale, but it does look pretty in the landscape.) I see it for sale in the grocery store once in a while. I have been thinking about giving chard a try and have the seeds for it, but it's never been a priority. I can believe that lettuce is an American thing. And it wouldn't be a top crop choice for people struggling to get enough calories.
DeleteI haven't had very good luck growing any lettuce types. I have to rely on my local farmers market and I add turnip greens and dandelion to the mix.
ReplyDeleteI like using the turnip greens because I then can eat the turnips when they're ready.
Spinach, kale and swiss chard grow great where I'm at.
I love my garden grown leaf lettuce. I also grow Swiss chard instead of spinach but I don’t like it raw. People need to grow what they eat and their family also enjoys. Nutrients are important, but useless if the food rots. On another topic, what’s wrong with American style salads? People are trying to eat the raw vegetables that are available to them. Granted, Americans need to watch the dressing and toppers. But are our salads automatically bad because “overfed” Americans eat them? People eat in different traditional ways because certain vegetables are easier to grow in one climate than another or they are limited to what is available in stores.
ReplyDeleteHeidi, glad you asked. In the currently 1st World America, we use Natural Gas and LOTS of Electricity to make nice CLEAN fertilizer for your Salad Bar.
DeleteIn other parts of the world even Europe they use more natural fertilizers as well as the man made chemicals.
Plenty of natural manures (let alone human, SEE the often recalls due to human fecal contamination of Bagged Lettuces and such) have things that NEED COOKING to make safe for you and I to eat.
In Asia where human night soil is *still* used in say most American Garlic supplies come from, cooking is WHAT FOLKS DO to be safe.
Remember this the next time (probably next week or so) when they have a FOOD RECALL for contamination.
Very true. My family has spent quite a bit of time in India where literally everything you eat or drink uncooked is contaminated with human feces. Indians have the antibodies to cope with raw vegetables which they eat a lot, but we tried to be especially careful with our children. I was the only one who became insanely ill.
DeleteGood points all...best to grow your own. I've been growing all my own greens either in pots on the deck (darned old bunnies) or inside in a hydroponic garden. I don't eat mass produce greens or sprouts after a stem cell transplant for cancer.
ReplyDeleteIt took some planning and trials, but I finally have it working.
My thoughts on the upcoming tough times is to learn now when we can so as to be ready for when a mistake could be far more costly.
Appreciate the blog, Jennifer; and the comments. It's like finding my people 😁