With people buying fewer vegetables than ever before, an expert explains which plants give us the best nutritional bang for our buck. We all know vegetables are good for us , but they aren’t created equal. While they’re all a source of fibre – something the majority of us should be eating more of – as well as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, these compounds are less concentrated in some varieties.
That said, all vegetables are nutritious, says Rhiannon Lambert, a nutritionist, the founder of the top Harley St clinic Rhitrition and the author of The Science of Plant-Based Nutrition , her recently published comprehensive vegetable Bible. It’s why plants have been central to human diets throughout history. Despite preconceptions of cavemen dining on bounties of meat, “it’s pretty obvious that the majority of what everybody was eating was vegetable matter” such as sea kale, samphire and nettles, says Dr Annie Gray, a food historian and the author of The Bookshop, the Draper, the Candlestick Maker: A History of the High Street .
This was still the case into the 19th century. The Victorians ate whatever vegetables were in season and available at their local market, or could be grown in their garden, including the now lesser-seen marrow, skirret and Japanese artichokes, she explains..
