Asparagus: A Healing Food

Asparagus is grown in 100 varieties worldwide and many nations claim it as their own.

This slinky root vegetable was known as a healing food as far back as the second century BC. Chinese herbalists also used asparagus to cure everything from arthritis to infertility. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, asparagus was a remedy of choice for toothaches, heart disorders, dropsy, and bee stings.

In Japan, asparagus juice tonics have been a time honored botanical treatment for cardiovascular disorders. There are five nutritional reasons for this:

First of spring vegetable satisfies 200% of your RDA for blood pressure regulating

Electrolyte balancing potassium

49% of your need for antioxidant vitamin C

Pectin, the cholesterol lowering fiber that also regulates bowel functions

Vitamin K for normal blood clotting

Asparagus contains substantial amounts of aspartic acid, an amino acid that neutralizes the excess amounts of ammonia in the body that cause fatigue and sexual lassitude.

Asparagus is also the sole source of the alkaloid asparagines, an essential for prostate gland health. And 1 cup of cooked asparagus spears supplies 66% of your 400 ug RDA for folate, which helps lower the risk of birth defects, and colon and cervical cancer.

An asparagus aperitif is a good once a week way to detoxify all 10 of your healing zones, especially the bladder, kidneys, and urinary tract, since asparagus’s highly alkaline salts and the trace elements silicon and molybdenum are all essential for the health of all the glands and major organs and for prevention of gout, acne, eczema, and other skin disorders.

Asparagus’s vitamin B makes it one of nature’s four top diuretics for relief of premenstrual bloating and edema.

Asparagus can increase your immunity while you decrease your weight. 1 cup cooked asparagus 1,300 IU of beta carotene and only 30 calories, with only a trace of sodium. Asparagus is the ideal food for dieters.

The tip of the asparagus is your tip for fresh asparagus. Fresh tips are firm, dry, compact and end in a sharp point and should smell clean and green. Use asparagus as soon as purchased or wrap in damp paper towels and store in a vegetable crisper.

Try the Following Uses

1. Toss cooked spears in grated cheese and fine whole wheat bread crumbs which have been sautéed in oil
2. Sprinkle cooked spears with cheese and oil, and broil for 60 seconds
3. Top warm or cold asparagus with healthy mayonnaise blended with the juice of one blood orange and grated lemon peel
4. Add tips to spring salads
5. Steamed stalks may be pureed for healing soups and sauces or juiced to supplement other juices or store bought soups.