If you're looking for a powerhouse of nutrition and health benefits to add to your smoothie, salad, or side dish, look no further!  Cabbage packs an incredible punch of nutrition to your daily routine!  This amazing vegetable (Brassica oleracea) comes in several varieties—green, red, and Savoy. Because different types provide different health promoting compounds, it's beneficial to eat all kinds. For example, Bok Choy has a higher beta carotene and vitamin A content than other varieties. Also, the red coloring in red cabbage is from a high concentration of anthocyanin flavonoids. These compounds are known for their anti-oxidant properties. Red cabbage has almost 3,000 times more anthocyanins as green cabbage. Historical use, as well as more recent studies, have shown cabbage to be a virtual “miracle food” for promoting good health.

Following are the most popular benefits of eating this power-packed vegetable at least two to three times per week.

• Certain nutrients in cabbage bind with bile acids in the intestine and pass out in the stool, rather than being absorbed into the blood. This causes the liver to draw upon your cholesterol stores to restore lost bile, thus lowering your cholesterol levels.
• One of the glucosinolates in this power-packed vegetable, Sinigrin, gives it its well-known cancer preventative properties.
• Being very rich in fiber, and having the distinct ability to retain water, causes cabbage to bulk up the stool and thus relieve constipation.
• Historically, cabbage juice has been taken to heal stomach ulcers. More recent studies have shown it to not only heal ulcers, but promote the health of the entire digestive tract.
• The high sulfur content of cabbage makes it the vegetable of choice, along with onions and garlic of course, when your body is fighting infection.
• Overall, cabbage contains 92% of a person’s daily value of vitamin K, six to eight more times vitamin C than an orange, various B vitamins (including folic acid), and even a hefty helping of Omega 3 fatty acids for a vegetable.