Health Benefits & Advantages of Lettuce Leaves

Among all the healthy leafy vegetables, lettuce has been a popular one for forming the base of any green salad. Apart from adding colour and flavour to your food, lettuce is known for its ability to improve your health with its nutrient content.

Do you wish to develop a lettuce-rich diet? Then, find out all about the benefits of lettuce from this article.

In the current urban lifestyle and growing pollution, deteriorating health conditions have been evident. Therefore, most people have taken an interest in eating healthy food. Leafy vegetables are often a major part of a healthy diet, and lettuce is one of the most popular leafy vegetables. Here are some of the benefits of lettuce leaves.

• Bone Strength: Lettuce is known for its ability to strengthen your bones. It is rich in Vitamin K. About 85gms of lettuce provides 149% of its Daily Value (DV). This vitamin is known for enhancing your bone growth and development. Consuming lettuce in an adequate quantity can reduce your chances of developing osteoporosis and fractures of the bones. Moreover, lettuce contains lipoxygenase, which can contribute to controlling inflammation. As a result, consuming lettuce will enable you to relieve inflammation and osteodynia, thereby reducing bone and joint pain. 

• Improved Vision: One of the common health benefits of lettuce is its contribution to visionary health. For example, lettuce is loaded with Vitamin A, which improves your eye health. In addition, this vegetable can reduce your chances of developing cataracts. Moreover, lettuce is a rich source of antioxidant beta carotene. Eating an adequate amount of this antioxidant contributes to strengthening your eyesight and reducing your risk of developing macular degeneration. Such a condition can cause vision loss in future. 

• Sleep Cycle Improvement: Getting sound sleep at night can be essential for leading a stress-free healthy life. Extracts of various forms of lettuce leaves are known to improve the sleep cycle. While there is still clinical research to analyse the role of lettuce in promoting healthy sleep, the dried latex of lettuce is often known for inducing sleep. As a result, doctors often use it as a sedative, nasal drop, an antispasmodic, and an anodyne. Moreover, clinical researchers have found that lettuce extracts can cause the isolation of a depressant chemical. A 2013 research shows that this vegetable's n-butanol fraction comprises non-polar agents that can improve your sleep quality.

• Hydration: If you consider the benefits of eating lettuce during the summer seasons, you should know its ability to keep your body hydrated. About 95% of law lettuce comprises water. Even though drinking liquid and water is essential to stay hydrated, eating a lettuce-rich diet can help you avoid the summer heat and its negative impact. This property of lettuce enables it to curb hunger and provide a feeling of fullness to the consumers. 

• Heart Health: Lettuce is rich in antioxidants and anthocyanin, which can fight inflammation and reduce the risks of heart diseases. The non-polar agents in this vegetable can reduce heart rate and ventricular contractions. This chemical blocks the excitatory signal processes of muscular and neural tissues, thereby protecting your heart health. If your diet is rich in lettuce, it is likely to control your blood's HDL (good) and LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. Moreover, it contains Vitamin C, another antioxidant. As a result, it again contributes to strengthening and improving your heart health, preventing cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

• Blood Pressure Management: Lettuce is rich in potassium and magnesium, which enable you to have a healthy heartbeat. It also ensures that the heart muscles are relaxed and free of stress. This way, it helps to control and manage healthy blood pressure. Moreover, it contains Vitamin K, which enhances blood clotting. As lettuce contains a good amount of potassium, a diet rich in this vegetable can help reduce high blood pressure. It helps to reduce the effects of sodium and dilates your blood vessels. As a result, you can control your blood pressure and keep it healthy.

• Weight Loss: Lettuce is also known for maintaining a healthy weight. For instance, these leafy vegetables are high in fibre but low in calories. Therefore, it gives you the feeling of fullness, thereby increasing your metabolism. However, it does not promote weight gain. Therefore, eating a diet rich in lettuce will help you curb sudden food cravings and maintain a healthy weight.

• Mental Health Booster: Besides improving your physical health, lettuce can also boost your mental health. Its neurological properties have been considered from ancient times to work on improving the mental state and conditions of individuals. Moreover, lettuce contains anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) properties. In previous instances of experimentation, animals consuming lettuce extracts showed signs of reduced locomotive activity. This shows that the consumption of this vegetable can ultimately lead to a reduced level of anxiety in humans.

As you can see, there are multiple health benefits of lettuce. However, the reasons behind these benefits can be traced to the nutritional values of lettuce. There are four types of lettuce. Their nutritional values are listed below.

Now that you are aware of the advantages of lettuce, you must be curious to find out the ways to incorporate it into your daily diet. While adding it to your salad can be easy, it is also a boring and monotonous food item for a daily diet. However, the process is quite simple. Here are some ways to include lettuce in your diet without making it taste super boring.

• Wraps: You can make both vegetarian and non-veg wraps with lettuce. Start with making a sauce with soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil and red pepper flakes. Next, add tofu or chicken as per your choice. Scramble it on a pan and cook it for a few minutes on medium heat. Next, add the sauce along with ginger and garlic for flavour. Stir for about 30-60 seconds. Enjoy the filling with lettuce leaves as wraps.
• Club sandwich: Start with tasting your bread and boiling a potato. Slice the potato and roast it. Next, take a pan and stir some vegetables of your choice. These may include onions, cabbage, capsicum and carrots. Add salt and chilli flakes to the vegetables. Next, spread some butter or mayo on your bread, and place lettuce leaves. On top of it, add the stirred vegetables. Next, add another lettuce, and put another piece of bread on top of it.
• Spring rolls: Clean and chop vegetables like cabbage, carrots and cucumbers into matchstick pieces. Next, add the lettuce leaves flat on the plat and add a little bit of each vegetable. Add some seasonings and peanut butter as per your taste. Now, start wrapping the lead against the vegetables like a burrito. Take a dipping sauce and enjoy your spring roll if it tastes bland.
• Fried rice: You can also enjoy lettuce with rice. Add some oil to a pan and start heating it. Then, add some shredded chicken or mushroom to the oil. Next, add salt, pepper and soy sauce. Stir for a few seconds. Then, add chopped lettuce and fry for 4-5 minutes. Add about two cups of cooked rice to this mix and cook for about two minutes till everything is mixed well.
• Smoothie: If you are a fan of liquids, you can make a delicious lettuce smoothie. Start with chopping romaine lettuce, bananas and apples. Then, add these to your blender. Furthermore, add some almond milk and honey, and start blending. Process until it is smooth, and pour it into glasses.

Usually, there are many low risks of consuming lettuce. This vegetable contains a large amount of water. Hence, you can only face its side effects if you consume a large quantity of this vegetable. In addition, it contains beta-carotene, which can cause carotenodermia. This condition gives a yellowish tint to your skin. You can get rid of it by reducing your carotenodermia consumption.

Apart from that, overconsumption of lettuce can cause an imbalance in your dietary intake. These vegetables are mostly rich in iron, Vitamin A and C. However, a diet rich in lettuce might lack enough protein and calcium. Furthermore, lettuce is a rich source of Vitamin K. While it might not be toxic in most cases, clinical research shows that excessive Vitamin K can be a concern for people under blood thinning medication.

There have also been cases whereby overconsumption of wild lettuce has caused side effects like sweating, fast heartbeat and pupil dilation. Moreover, I can also cause dizziness, vision changes and breathing difficulty.

As discussed already, people under the medication of blood thinning medicines warfarin should restrict their lettuce consumption. This is mainly because dietary Vitamin K can be toxic for them. In general, older adults over 65 years of age are likely to face the issues of foodborne diseases, and the same goes for children under the age of five years. Therefore, they must restrict the incursion of lettuce in their daily diets.

People under heavy medication and with weak immune systems should also avoid incorporating large quantities of lettuce into their daily diets. Pregnant women are also advised to avoid this vegetable and its overconsumption.