Food as Medicine: Garlic Sauteed Chard Recipe
- March 13, 2021
- Ashley Tyrner
Prep
5 mins
cook
9 mins
serves
4
Food is Medicine folks!
This is a topic that FarmboxRx believes in firmly. Food is medicine and by eating the proper diet consisting of nutritiously rich foods, the body becomes more aligned with top notch health! When asking yourself, why do I eat, a quick response may instinctively be because the body is hungry. Another go-to answer is that the body needs foods to serve as fuel for performing the day-to-day tasks required of it. I agree with both of these angles, and as a third response would add, that well, we can actually eat to heal ourselves. By getting the right foods into the body, it can begin to heal itself from the inside out, one bite at a time! Let’s go further…
We all know that fruits and vegetables are filled with vitamins and minerals that are essential to proper body functioning. A key note here is that not only is produce amazing for maintaining great health, but it can also be a tool for healing as well. If we look at green veggies for example, all of them are rich in the green pigment known in nature as chlorophyll. It allows plants to absorb energy from the sun, aka their strongest source of light. Some of the few benefits of consuming chlorophyll include:
-restoring and replenishing red blood cells
-reducing blood acidity
-detoxifying and blood cleansing
-reducing inflammation pain
-helping in the formation and maintenance of strong bones
Eating to Heal
As essential as any other wellness method, looking at food from an authoritative health angle can completely shift our relationship with our meals. What if each meal, we consciously chose to eat foods that are vibrant in benefits in order to make sure we are just one step (or bite!) closer to a healthier self. We can do that with the foods we eat! Back to the chlorophyll example, which applies to all of your favorite green veggies, restoring red blood cells, detoxifying the blood, helping in the maintenance of strong bones, these are all components of being a living, breathing human that we want to pay close attention to. And this doesn’t only apply to green foods! All fruits and vegetables gain their colors from different plant-based pigments found in nature. And each of these pigments offer several different healing properties. A quick glance over the colors of the rainbow shows three chemicals that consistently pop up in foods coming directly from soil, trees, and bushes.
Chlorophyll – absorbs toxins that can lead to illnesses
Carotenoids – are antioxidants that can enhance your immune system
Anthocyanin – contains anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects
Chlorophyll we know is responsible for giving foods like broccoli, green beans, and swiss chard their green color. Carotenoids give red, orange, and yellow hues to foods like bell peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and squash. And anthocyanins are a natural source providing the blue and purple colors we love to blueberries, blackberries, and grapes.
How To Consume More Colors
To consume more colors, it’s as simple as purchasing foods of varying colors. Don’t know where to start when it comes to picking the tastiest foods of each shade? That’s when a produce delivery service like FarmboxRx becomes your go-to subscription service! From the comfort and safety of your home, you can order groceries to be delivered to your doorstep, and save yourself the hassle and risk of walking into the supermarket and trying to remember the rainbow acronym when deciding on which foods to select. Our service makes ordering healthy food online straightforward and streamlined. We hand-select the farmers we work with to bring you the freshest-tasting produce that contains a variety of plant-based pigments to help you view food as medicine.
While it’s easy to view chewing on a sweet apple as a healthy choice (after all, one apple a day keeps the doctor away,) don’t underestimate the powerful and flavorful punch that is packed into the base of most savory dishes: garlic and onions. Incorporating garlic into your foods for example can give your immune system a nice boost, along with providing protection against cell damage, both of which assist in the body’s ability to heal. And when the garlic is paired with a power green like Swiss chard, then the body’s systems can also take in all of the incredible antioxidative properties as well!
Swiss chard, which is in the same family as beets and spinach, provides you with potassium, manganese, and vitamins A, C, and K. (The family ties totally make sense when you notice how the stalk is often a red, beet-like color and the leaves themselves look like giant spinach leaves!) Belonging to the goosefoot family, this plant grows on slightly acidic soil that gets direct exposure to sunlight. Back to our lesson earlier on chlorophyll and how it allows plants to absorb said energy from the sun, this makes way for us to believe that when we eat Swiss chard, we are getting a high dose of healing properties hailing directly from the sun through each bite! Or at least that’s what I tell myself to eat more of this stuff. It can be eaten raw and makes an incredible gluten-free wrap substitute, but lately, I’ve been really into sauteeing it on the skillet and adding it as a side dish to my main meal. It takes about 10 minutes and tastes absolutely delicious!
Give this recipe a try, and be sure to tag us @FarmboxRx and using the hashtag #FarmboxRx so that we can find your creations. Now let’s hop right into the recipe!
Ingredients
10 leaves chard
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
salt to taste
Directions
- Preheat a large skillet with olive oil to medium heat.
- Prepare chard by removing the stems and chopping stems and leaves into bite-sized pieces.
- Add garlic to the preheated pan, and sweat for 2-3 minutes, or until fragrant and slightly translucent.
- Add chard stems and cook for 3-4 minutes, or until softened, stirring occasionally.
- Add chard leaves, cover, and cook for 1-2 minutes, or until the leaves are wilted. Top with a few pinches of salt, and serve warm.
Food as Medicine: Garlic Sauteed Chard
Print Recipe Pin RecipeIngredients
- 10 chard leaves
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Preheat a large skillet with olive oil to medium heat.
- Prepare chard by removing the stems and chopping stems and leaves into bite-sized pieces.
- Add garlic to the preheated pan, and sweat for 2-3 minutes, or until fragrant and slightly translucent.
- Add chard stems and cook for 3-4 minutes, or until softened, stirring occasionally.
- Add chard leaves, cover, and cook for 1-2 minutes, or until the leaves are wilted. Top with a few pinches of salt, and serve warm.