Encouraging Health

Know what’s super bad for your body? Inflammation. It’s thought to be at the core of problems like heart disease and heart attacks.

Know what’s a great way to quiet inflammation? Get your fill of vitamin K. Good choices: just about anything leafy and green — from spinach and kale to collards and turnip greens.

Fanning the Flames of Inflammation
Inflammation is your body’s response to injury or infection. And when it occurs in your blood vessels, inflammation can be a sign of bad things to come — like ruptured arterial plaques, clot formation, heart attack, and stroke. Enter leafy greens. They pack a real vitamin K punch, and more and more research is linking high vitamin K intake to a lower bodywide inflammation index.

Going for the Green
Bored with salads? The trick to getting more greens — and more vitamin K — into your diet may be learning to use them more creatively. Start with something simple but different, like this Basic Sauteed Kale recipe from EatingWell.

Then, move on to these K-rich greens recipes that will have you feeling like a world traveler:
Simmer kale with chickpeas and exotic spices
Slip collard greens into your red sauces
Mix spinach with butternut squash and beans:

Shaped like a flattened drum, buttercup squash most closely resembles the local squash used in this comforting hearty soup from northern Brazil. It has a dark green peel, a grayish turban-shaped top and dense orange flesh. Hubbard, butternut or delicata squashes could also be used. Instead of the lip-numbing Brazilian green jambu, we have used spinach. For a more festive look, serve in a roasted squash half

Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
6 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
3 pounds buttercup squash, peeled and diced (about 6 cups)
1 plum tomato, chopped
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 15-ounce cans pinto or other brown beans, rinsed
10 ounces spinach, stemmed and coarsely chopped
1 lime, cut into wedges

Directions
1. Melt butter in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add garlic, carrots and onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender and lightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Add broth and scrape up any browned bits with a wooden spoon. Add squash, tomato, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the squash is very soft and almost breaking apart, about 20 minutes.
2. Transfer 3 cups of the soup to a blender and puree until smooth. (Use caution when pureeing hot liquids.) Return the pureed soup to the pot. Stir in beans and spinach and cook over medium heat until the beans are heated through and the spinach is wilted, about 5 minutes. Serve with lime wedges.

For more healthy advice and recipes, browse Encouraging Health.