Green vegetables: the habit that decides the most
If you change one thing about how you eat, make it this one. Nothing else in a diet returns as much.
If you improve one thing about how you eat, make it this. No other change to a diet returns as much for as little effort.
What green vegetables carry
Leafy greens bring folate, iron, calcium, vitamin K, magnesium and a great deal of fibre, at very low calorie cost. That combination is not available anywhere else in the food supply at the same price.
The iron in greens is plant iron, which the body absorbs less readily than iron from meat. Vitamin C fixes this - a squeeze of lemon over cooked greens meaningfully improves what you take from the meal. It is a small habit with a real effect.
On the strong claims
Diets high in vegetables are consistently associated with lower rates of several serious diseases, and that association is one of the most durable findings in nutrition. But no vegetable prevents or cures cancer, and any source telling you otherwise is not worth your trust. Eat greens because the evidence for general health is genuinely strong - not because something has been promised.
Getting them in
Aim for greens at one meal a day. Palak, methi, sarson, cabbage, beans, or whatever the season is giving cheaply. Cook them lightly - long boiling costs you the folate and the vitamin C. Dinner is the easiest meal to build the habit into, because it is the one you are most often at home for.
