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Leafy Greens -- Ranked and Rated

"Greens are the No. 1 food you can eat regularly to help improve your health," says Jill Nussinow, MS, RD, a culinary educator in Northern California and the author of The Veggie Queen. That's because leafy vegetables are brimming with fiber along with vitamins, minerals, and plant-based substances that may help protect you from heart disease, diabetes, and perhaps even cancer. Even so, Americans are not eating as many vegetables each day as dietary experts recommend.

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To encourage you to put more leafy vegetables on your plate, WebMD asked Nussinow to rank the country's most widely-eaten greens from most nutritious to least. Here's our top 10 list:

    Kale: This nutrition powerhouse "offers everything you want in a leafy green," says Nussinow, who gave it her first-place ranking. It's an excellent source of vitamins A C, and K, has a good amount of calcium for a vegetable, and also supplies folate and potassium. Kale's ruffle-edged leaves may range in color from cream to purple to black depending on the variety.

    Before cooking with kale, collards, turnips, and chard, Nussinow recommends swishing the greens in a water-filled sink, draining the sink, then repeating this rinse until the leaves are dirt-free. Her favorite cooking method for these four greens is to rub the leaves in olive oil or tahini (sesame paste) and cook them for five minutes with garlic, olive oil, and broth.

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Collards: Used in Southern-style cooking, collard greens are similar in nutrition to kale. But they have a heartier and chewier texture and a stronger cabbage-like taste. "Collards are an under-appreciated vegetable and most people don't know about them," suggests Nussinow. She says they're also popular with the raw food movement because the wide leaves are used as a wrapper instead of tortillas or bread. Down South, collards are typically slow cooked with either a ham hock or smoked turkey leg. A half cup has 25 calories.

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Turnip greens: "If you buy turnips with the tops on, you get two vegetables in one," Nussinow tells WebMD. Turnip leaves are another Southern favorite traditionally made with pork. More tender than other greens and needing less cooking, this sharp-flavored leaf is low in calories yet loaded with vitamins A,C, and K as well as calcium.

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Swiss chard: With red stems, stalks, and veins on its leaves, Swiss chard has a beet-like taste and soft texture that's perfect for sauteeing. Both Swiss chard and spinach contain oxalates, which are slightly reduced by cooking and can bind to calcium, a concern for people prone to kidney stones. Chard contains 15 calories in one-half cup and is a good source of vitamins A and C. Nussinow likes to make a sweet-and-sour chard by adding raisins and vinegar to the cooked greens.

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