hi everyone I'm dr. Karen Deena and
today I'm going to answer this question
what is so great about dandelion greens
and I have to say a lot of people think
about dandelions as being these weeds
that tend to grow in the front yard that
are just kind of a pain but you know
what I think is really amazing about
them they're nutrient content
now a couple things to know about
dandelions in addition to their nutrient
content is that they're in the sunflower
family also called the aster AC
oftentimes people think of leafy greens
as being mostly in the cabbage family
but dandelion greens are one of the many
that are found in the sunflower family
so there definitely are some nutrient
differences between the sunflower family
and the cabbage family there's also some
similarities to they are easy to grow
definitely in fact if you walk down the
street you could probably see some rogue
dandelions growing in the cracks in the
sidewalk sir growing along the side of
the road they have a tendency to grow
everywhere now I personally like to grow
them in my garden and here's a picture
of some dandelions growing in my garden
right now look at these beautiful
dandelion greens that we have growing in
our garden next to our lettuce we've
grown quite a bit in the last couple of
weeks and now they're looking really
green and vibrant nice here are some of
the positive attributes of garden grown
dandelion greens first of all they tend
to be larger or taller or longer than
the ones that you find growing elsewhere
they also tend to be not as bitter
especially in comparison to the ones
that you find in the grocery store and
this is true even when they are fully
grown and I'm somebody who doesn't mind
the bitterness but I have to say I
really like dandelion greens when they
are not as bitter so growing them in the
garden can really help in that regard
additionally I find that the dandelions
that I grow in my garden digest very
similar to other members of the
sunflower family such as lettuce as
opposed to some of the darker leafy
greens for example kale
number one I like to put them in salad I
also like to put them in smoothies and I
like to put them in juice there's just a
lot of different ways that you can enjoy
dandelion greens and I would encourage
you to find which way you enjoy the most
here is a nutrient analysis of four cups
of chopped dandelion greens we've got
about a hundred calories for those four
cups and in those four cups we've got
411 milligrams of calcium that is
excellent we've got six point eight
milligrams of iron and if we compare
that to the daily values here which is
eight milligrams for a man or a
postmenopausal women and 18 milligrams
for premenopausal women that is a
notable amount of iron the zinc content
is pretty good
potassium content is great and magnesium
content is good as well
I would expect the magnesium content to
be good in dandelion greens because they
are a leafy green leafy greens contain a
good amount of magnesium because the
chlorophyll that you find in leafy
greens if you look at the center of the
chlorophyll molecule there's magnesium
there so any leafy green is going to
have a decent amount of magnesium in it
because of the chlorophyll content
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