Vitamin K: a matter of slight argument at times when I eat at my parents’, because I happen to love quite an amount of vegetables that contain it, while most of my family just isn’t too keen about veggies as a whole. Their loss, I say! Because the vitamin K in them is something that is really worth getting.
- It allows your blood to clot normally (both by making it happen and by regulating its whole process–we want clotting to stop at some point, too).
- It helps protect against osteoporosis (vitamin K1 helps maintain bone mass, and shouldn’t we women especially love this?).
- It prevent oxidative cell damage (let’s give one more kick to those free radicals: we need antioxydants!).
You might want to check whether your vitamin K intake is high enough if you notice you happen to bruise or bleed easily, experience malabsorption, or suffer from liver/gallbladder problems.
Vitamin K isn’t that hard to get. Actually, it is present in vegetables that could probably be considered as very common, such as green beans and spinach, or broccoli and green peas. The benefits listed above also aren’t all there is to it: it seems that research about vitamin K is progressing regularly, and is currently bent on analyzing, among other things, the way it can help our bodies to bind calcium. Besides, there’s another good thing with that vitamin: contrary to others, it is more resilient when cooked, which contributes to a lower loss of it than could be expected at first.
WHfoods.org has a very good, recent article about the benefits and effects of vitamin K, and I will encourage you to read it. (But beware if you need to take anticoagulant medications, though.)
Great Post!
Eddie
NinerNiner