The healing power of turnip or turnip

Turnip is a well-known vegetable of yesteryear in the Netherlands and Belgium that can be harvested from the end of May to November. It is a super healthy vegetable, especially the leaves excel in high percentages for vitamins and minerals, higher than many exotic and expensive superfoods. Turnips are increasingly found in greengrocers, especially organic stores. For a long time the turnip has only been cultivated by vegetable gardeners, but these vegetables are now being taken from oblivion. You also see it more and more on the menu of restaurants where originality is of paramount importance. The turnip is closely related to the stubble turnip.

Eat the leaves!

Turnips should always be sold including the leaves, as these contain considerably more vitamins and minerals than the tuber. The leaves contain three times as much vitamin C. By comparison: 100 grams of the turnip tuber already contains 35% of the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). This means that our turnip green already contains more than the RDA value for vitamin C. There is also more of several other phytonutrients in the leaf: six times as much calcium, three times as much of the mineral manganese and even 250 times as much vitamin K. Vitamin A is not in the tuber but is largely in the leaf green, no less than 1400 % of the RDI, per ounce! The number of calories of the tuber and the green is about the same.

The foliage on the turnip, which is sometimes also sold, is edible but it is not turnip greens as is sometimes thought. The leaves taste a bit bitter, but you can get that off by blanching it. You can cook turnip whole or in cubes. The smaller you cook it, the faster it will cook. The turnip grows with a long taproot and the part just below the ground, under the leaves becomes a lot thicker, a tuber. Young, small turnips are more highly valued by culinary experts than large, fully grown ones. You can eat a young turnip raw in a salad. It's also a good idea to put turnip in vinegar.

The ancient Romans already ate turnip. However, the Romans had no special preference for this healthy vegetable; they preferred to give it to the pigs, but in times of need they simply ate it, according to Pliny the Elder. Incidentally, the large mature tubers are still fed to animals today. The Romans had learned the use of turnip from people in ancient Greece, who probably adopted it from the rest of the Mediterranean. Some scientists believe this vegetable originated in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In India and China the turnip was also cultivated in ancient times.

Turnip contains a large amount of vitamin K. 100 grams is good for 350% of the RDA of vitamin K. Vitamin K is extra good for people with Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain diseases. Vitamin K can slow down the disease process in the brain and, in some cases, help reverse and cure an incipient disease process.

Turnip is a type of cabbage and like all types of cabbage it is a strong antioxidant and has an anti-inflammatory effect. It has traditionally been used in all kinds of traditional medicine. Cabbages have been extensively researched and their medicinal efficacy is undisputed. Cabbages are among the healthiest vegetables: in fact, kale is the undisputed number one healthy vegetable in terms of nutrient content. Turnip has somewhat lower percentages of nutrients than kale, but not if you eat the leaves with it; then you get awfully close to the health value of kale. Turnip is good with other types of cabbage:

Furthermore, cabbage is an excellent vegetable in diets aimed at weight loss. That's because you eat less during a diet and you usually run the risk of nutrient deficiencies. However, coal contains so many nutrients that you can hardly get short of it. So eat a lot of cabbage if you want to lose weight and eat cabbage two to three times a week to maintain weight. For variation it is good to buy turnip with leaves; this way you eat both the underground and the aboveground cabbage.

Turnip green is sometimes sold separately / Source: Quadell, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA-3.0)