COLORFUL SALAD WITH PUMPKIN

 

Do you like salads? You’ll love today’s! I’ve called it COLORFUL SALAD WITH PUMPKIN and you already know why.

Many times when I make a salad I end up making a complete leftovers recipe. I end up putting together in one dish many ingredients that I have in the pantry and that I didn’t originally plan to use.

 

Prepare a colorful salad with pumpkin and enjoy all the vitamins and minerals it provides.

 

If you stop for a moment to look at the photos, you will see GREEN, WHITE, PURPLE, ORANGE AND RED. What do you think if we stop for a moment at each color? GREEN: In my salads the base is usually some green leaf, this time it was arugula, but it could have been any other type of salad. I also usually have plenty of avocados, the thing is that they have been grown very close to my house and I am lucky that they are given to me as gifts, so I consume them quite frequently. What I like most about them is the fat content, which turns out to be very filling. WHITE: Since it is winter, cauliflower is another of the vegetables that I usually have, and cooked al dente it is very good in any salad. Continuing with white, I will tell you that I really like fresh cheeses, cottage cheese, mozzarella, I often add that dairy touch to salads, I added some to this one mozzarella balls, which was what there was.

I’m passionate about sprouts. I usually make them myself, but sometimes I also buy them, like these alfalfa ones, which have a mild flavor and a crunchy texture that I love.

When the seeds germinate, white stems grow on them, the length of which depends on the germination time.

Sprouts have some very interesting nutritional benefits, which I already explained in this post about How to germinate lentils at home.

Take a look if you’re interested in the subject. You can germinate your legumes and seeds at home in an easy and safe way.

 

Prepare your salads with foods from many colors, the more variety the better.

 

ORANGE: I love pumpkin, and at this time of year I always have some in the kitchen, it’s very helpful, I use it to prepare everything, soups, creams, desserts, and I also usually add it to salads or as a garnish.

Cooking pumpkin is very simple, in the oven, also steamed, controlling the time is a way to preserve its nutrients, if you boil it all the soluble vitamins will remain in the water and that is not the idea.

 

 

 

Its orange color indicates its beta-carotene or provitamin A content, antioxidant components that are converted into vitamin A once digested. You already know that vitamin A promotes good eye health and contributes to the maintenance of healthy skin.

RED: I also added cherry tomatoes, which were the ones I had on hand, but a juicy salad tomato would also be good.

You already know that they are also rich in vitamins A, C, and K, as well as iron and potassium.

If you prepare your salads with colorful foods, you will benefit from the best of each food and the enjoyment for your senses will be even greater.

 

The star of this colorful salad is pumpkin, rich in beta-carotenes and vitamin C.

 

Another ingredient that is usually never missing in my salads are nuts. I like them because they add a crunchy touch and, above all, because of their high nutritional density; a moderate amount will be enough.

Furthermore, seeds are also the perfect complement. In this case, I used sesame seeds, which are rich in Omega 3, Omega 6, vitamin A, calcium, and magnesium.

And now that we’ve seen all the ingredients in the salad, let’s go back to the pumpkin, which is the real star of the dish.

Although I’ve already written many posts about it, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to tell you what good things it provides us with and another interesting fact: its glycemic load.

Because despite being a very sweet vegetable with a high glycemic index, its glycemic load is low, which means that its effect on blood glucose levels will not be as prominent as one might expect.

 

Pumpkin is rich in provitamin A and vitamin C, provides fiber and its glycemic loadis low.

 

Properties and benefits of pumpkin for our health:

• It is mainly composed of water.
• Rich in fiber.
• Low in carbohydrates.
• Low in calories.
• Rich in beta-carotene (provitamin A) and vitamin C.
• It also contains vitamins E, B1, B2, B3 and B6.
• Contains folates.
• Rich in potassium and contains phosphorus and magnesium.

 

Glycemic index and glycemic load of pumpkin:

Pumpkin is a low-carbohydrate food, but its glycemic index (GI) is 75, which is quite high, whereas its glycemic load (GL) is low. Why is this? I’ll explain below.

To calculate the GL of a serving of food, divide the GI by 100 and multiply the result by the amount of carbohydrates in grams of that serving.

For example, for a 100-gram serving of pumpkin, divide its GI by 100 and get 0.75. Now multiply by the amount of carbohydrates contained in 100 grams of edible portion of pumpkin, which according to the Spanish database of food composition foods (BEDCA) is 5.6 gr.

0.75 x 5.6 = 4.2

Rounding the result, we conclude that 100 grams of pumpkin have a glycemic load of 4, that is, low.

This information is essential to know how a food will influence our blood glucose.

And now that you know a little more about pumpkin, and you’ve seen how easy it is to put together a good salad with it, I suppose you’d like to try it, so write down the ingredients and don’t take too long to make it. 😉