Leaf vegetables: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 16:49, 7 October 2024

Leaf vegetables, also called potherbs, greens, or leafy greens, are plant leaves eaten as a vegetable, sometimes accompanied by tender petioles and shoots. Although they come from a very wide variety of plants, most share a great deal with other leaf vegetables in nutrition and cooking methods.

Nearly one thousand species of plants with edible leaves are known. Leaf vegetables most often come from short lived herbaceous plants such as lettuce, spinach and collard greens. Woody plants whose leaves can be eaten as leaf vegetables include Adansonia, Aralia, Moringa, Morus, and Toona species.

The leaves of many fodder crops are also edible by humans, but usually only eaten under famine conditions. Examples include alfalfa, clover, and most grasses, including wheat and barley. These plants are often much more prolific than more traditional leaf vegetables, but exploitation of their rich nutrition is difficult, primarily because of their high fibre content. This obstacle can be overcome by further processing such as drying and grinding into powder (flour) or pulping and pressing for juice.

During the first half of the 20th century many grocery stores with vegetable sections sold small bunches of herbs tied with a string to small green and red peppers known as "potherbs."

How much does one cup of greens / leaf vegetables weigh?

Estimated US cup to weight equivalents:

Conversion notes:
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We also have a generic conversion table and a portions per person lookup.

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