Cucumbers have always been cool. Now, thanks to social media, they're also hot. Viral cucumber recipes racked up millions of views in the past year, thrusting the salad bar staple into the spotlight.
Which might leave you wondering: Healthwise, can cukes endure the glare? Or should they be deleted from your diet? Unlike some online trends, this is one you can, for the most part, go ahead and sink your teeth into, said Dr. Matthew Landry, an assistant professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine. "Anytime we can get folks to eat more fruits and vegetables – I love seeing that," Landry said.
He calls cucumbers affordable, versatile and a relatively healthy replacement for chips or other snacks. Generally speaking, cucumbers have "a lot of things in the benefits column," he said, and few negatives. But among those negatives is the fact that "they're not supernutritious.
" A cucumber does carry a few nutrients. A predominant one is vitamin K, "which is important in our bodies for blood clotting," he said. A whole 8 1/4-inch cucumber, with the peel, would have roughly 40% of an adult man's daily recommended amount of vitamin K, or 55% of an adult woman's daily needs, according to the U.
S. Department of Agriculture. But that's from the entire cucumber.
A more traditional half-cup serving would have about one-sixth the amount of a whole cuke. Cucumbers also have a bit of vitamins C and A, Landry said. "But again, I would say that the.
