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).
