Healing with Food Newsletter

Bok Choy

Accompanying recipe: Bok Choy Slaw

If you only use bok choy in stir-fries, here are five great reasons to expand your repertoire. This often underutilized veggie is available in most supermarkets. It grows as a rosette of upright, crinkled green leaves held on large, thick, flat and crunchy white stalks. Like chard, bok choy leaves may be stripped and used separately from the stem. Both stems and leaves are great in soups and salads.

1. Bok choy is easier to digest than its relatives, kale and cabbage.

2. It is mild and sweet tasting and its white stalks are tender and crunchy.

3. Bok choy stores better than kale and chard and is typically more economical. (Jade colored baby bok choy is, however, more expensive.)

4. Energetically bok choy supports the stomach and large intestine functions; it helps clear excess heat, toxins and is mildly diuretic.

5. Nutritionally, bok choy has more beta-carotene than cabbage (as is indicated by its deeply colored green leaves) and it supplies considerably more calcium. It abundantly provides the antioxidants and other nutraceuticals common to cabbage family members that help combat cancer and heart disease.

Mid-month, I'll provide you with one of my favorite bok choy recipes. In the meantime, I invite you to experiment--and delight--with it yourself. See if you can guess how I'll use bok choy in our next recipe.

May you be well nourished!

Rebecca Wood