Chefs, “foodies,” and home growers are fast embracing radish microgreens as one of the most popular microgreens. Radish microgreens are extremely nutritious and popular, not simply because of their crisp and pungent flavor. Radish microgreens include more nutrients than radish bulbs, including vitamins, minerals, protein, enzymes, and antioxidants.
Microgreens, on average, deliver four to six times the amount of essential elements as equivalent mature vegetables or greens, according to dieticians. Varying microgreen varieties may have drastically different nutritional contents.
Daikon radish microgreens, for example, have the greatest vitamin E content of all the microgreens. In North America, daikon radishes aren’t particularly popular among gardeners. They are more typically utilized as microgreens.
Radish Microgreens Nutrition: An Excellent Addition to Any Healthy Diet
Radish microgreens are a bold and nutrient-dense food. Proteins, essential amino acids, vitamins, polyunsaturated fats, fiber, minerals, and antioxidants are all abundant in these foods.
Essential amino acids can be found in Radish Microgreens. Energy control, enzyme functioning, tissue growth and repair, immunological functions, neurotransmitter generation, and calcium absorption are just a few of the other vital tasks that essential amino acids enable the body to carry out.
Essential amino acids, unlike nonessential amino acids, cannot be produced by the body and must be received through diet. These essential amino acids are found in radish microgreens, which your body cannot create independently.
Antioxidants in Radish Microgreens Fight Free Radicals
Antioxidants are compounds that can minimize or prevent cellular damage produced by free radicals, which are unstable molecules.
Free radicals are formed in the body as a result of regular metabolic processes like digestion, as well as external sources, including X-rays, ozone, cigarette smoking, air pollution, industrial chemicals, UV light, and other external environmental stresses.
Inflammatory disorders, stroke, heart disease, cancer, immunological weakness, and other conditions can all be caused by free radicals. Free radicals are formed as a result of normal metabolic activity, as previously stated.
As a result, they are impossible to avoid, which is why including antioxidant-rich foods in your diet, such as radish microgreens, is critical.
The study conducted in 2014 by researchers from the United States Department of Agriculture, published on the department’s web archive, evaluated over a dozen commercially marketed microgreen types to determine their nutritional value.
In a study titled “Assessment of Vitamin and Carotenoid Concentrations of Emerging Food Products: Edible Microgreens,” published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry in 2012, researchers analyzed the nutritional content of 25 widely available microgreens. Microgreens contain four to forty times more vitamins and carotenoids than their mature counterparts, according to these researchers. (Carotenoids are antioxidants that are primarily red, orange, or yellow fat-soluble pigments that give plants their vibrant colors.)
Daikon radish, crimson cabbage, garnet amaranth, and arugula were the 25 microgreen variants studied. The highest vitamin C, carotenoids, vitamin K, and vitamin E concentrations were found in daikon radish, red cabbage, garnet amaranth, and cilantro, among the 25 microgreen kinds evaluated.
Microgreens, such as the increasingly popular radish microgreens, give a far higher percentage of health-promoting elements than their mature vegetable counterparts, as previously stated. They also provide more medicinal benefits than mature plants.
The more vitamins and minerals a food source has, the fresher and healthier it is. As a result, since we eat fewer vegetables than advised, improving the Radish Microgreen nutrition density in our diet will help close the difference.
What Are the Health Benefits of Radish Microgreens?
A rising number of peer-reviewed studies have found that radish microgreens provide various critical medical benefits, including antioxidant, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer characteristics, thanks to their high nutritional content.
People have employed plants as a source of medicine since the dawn of humanity. Radish microgreens were utilized medicinally by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks.
Below are some health benefits that radish microgreens offer:
- Radish microgreens are high in Vitamin B6 and folate, both of which are beneficial to the cardiovascular system.
- Radish microgreens are effective cancer fighters as they have a high polyphenol and glucosinolate concentration.
- Radish microgreens are one of the best foods for weight loss as they are low in calories and high in vitamin c. Vitamin c, in the appropriate concentration, aids in the burning of body fat.
- They have immense benefits for the skin due to the high presence of vitamin C and antioxidants.
- They are helpful in fighting Alzheimer’s disease. Antioxidant-rich components in radish microgreens, such as a high concentration of polyphenols, help to reduce Alzheimer’s disease risk.
- They also control diabetes and sugar levels. The antioxidants in microgreens assist in reducing the stress that prevents sugar from entering cells properly. Radish microgreens have been proven to increase the glucose uptake of cells by 25 to 44 percent, helping manage diabetes.
What Vitamins Do Radish Microgreens Provide?
Vitamin A, C, and E, as well as B complex vitamins, are abundant in radish microgreens.
The following figures are based on a 100-gram serving of radish microgreens.
Vitamin A: Radish microgreens supply 391 International Units (IU), or about 8% of the RDA for vitamin A in the diet.
Retinol, retinal, and retinyl esters are fat-soluble retinoids that make vitamin A. It is essential for developing and maintaining healthy bones and teeth, soft tissues, skin, mucous membranes, and other physiological processes. Cellular communication, immunological function, eyesight, and reproduction all rely on it.
Retinol is converted to retinoic acid, a hormone-like growth factor for epithelial cells that line the body’s surfaces, such as blood vessels and skin. Retinol also causes pigmentation in the retinas of the eyes.
Vitamin B complex: Radish microgreens are high in vitamin B, with one serving containing the following nutrients.
- 95 micrograms (mcg) folate (24 percent RDA),
- 0.1 milligrammes (mg) vitamin B1 (thiamine) or 7% RDA,
- 0.1 milligrammes (mg) vitamin B2 (riboflavin) or 6% RDA,
- 0.3 milligrammes (mg) vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) or 14% RDA, and
- 0.3 milligrammes (mg) vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)
Folate is especially important for pregnant women since it helps to avoid serious congenital abnormalities in the developing brain and spine of the fetus (such as neural tube defects).
Vitamin B is also important for cellular health, energy levels, good brain and nerve function, cardiovascular health, red blood cell proliferation, and a variety of other functions.
Vitamin C: Radish microgreens are high in vitamin C, with 28.9 mg per serving, or 48% of the recommended daily allowance.
Vitamin C is a well-known vitamin that is necessary for the development, growth, and repair of all body tissues. It is important for collagen production, bone, cartilage, tooth maintenance and strength, immunological function, iron absorption, and other biological activities.
Vitamin E: 100 grams of daikon radish microgreens contain around 120 milligrams of vitamin E. This is nearly a quarter of the RDA. As previously stated, the daikon radish microgreens have among the greatest quantities of vitamin E, which is one of the body’s key antioxidants, when compared to other microgreens. Antioxidants safeguard molecular and cellular components by neutralizing or reducing free radicals.
Which Minerals Do Radish Microgreens Provide?
The nutrition of radish microgreens also comprises a significant amount of essential mineral components for a balanced diet. They are:
- manganese
- magnesium
- phosphorus
- calcium
- iron
- copper
- zinc
- potassium
- selenium
- potassium
- selenium
Nutritional Profile of Radish Microgreens: Summary
Radish microgreens not only have a strong, crunchy flavor, but they also provide color and diversity to your recipes while also packing a nutritious punch with various advantages.
Nutritional Values of Radish Microgreens based on 100 grams of serving:
- Vitamin A – 8%
- 6 to 24 percent vitamin B complex
- 48 percent vitamin C
- 25 percent vitamin E
- 13 percent manganese
- Magnesium (11%) Magnesium (11%) Magnesium (11%) Magne
- Phosphorus accounts for about 11% of the total.
- Calcium (5% of total)
- 5 percent iron
- 4 percent zinc
- 6 percent copper
- Potassium is 2% of the total.
- Selenium is present with a concentration of 1%.
Conclusion:
Radish microgreens are an excellent method to supplement your diet with nutrients and flavor. Vitamins A, C, E, and K, as well as calcium, iron, and dietary fiber, are abundant in radishes. They also have a lot of antioxidants in them, which can aid in reducing inflammation in the body. We take a closer look at radish microgreens nutrition and health advantages in the preceding post.
References
Renna, M., & Paradiso, V. M. (2020). Ongoing Research on Microgreens: Nutritional Properties, Shelf-Life, Sustainable Production, Innovative Growing and Processing Approaches. Foods (Basel, Switzerland), 9(6), 826. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods9060826
Xiao, Z., Lester, G. E., Luo, Y., & Wang, Q. (2012). Assessment of vitamin and carotenoid concentrations of emerging food products: Edible microgreens. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 60(31), 7644–7651. https://doi.org/10.1021/jf300459b
Zhang, Y., Xiao, Z., Ager, E., Kong, L., & Tan, L. (2021, November 8). Nutritional Quality and health benefits of microgreens, a crop of modern agriculture. Journal of Future Foods. Retrieved June 3, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772566921000057
