Say "cabbage" to most people in the United States and they will probably think of coleslaw. The more adventurous may have run into red cabbage on a fish taco. Overall, it may not be a food at the front of many people's minds. This is an opportunity for food producers, though. If you want to distinguish yourself from your competition, especially where healthy recipes are concerned, Silva's red, white, or savoy cabbage might be just the ingredient you need.
When you hear people talk about dietary health, there is usually a focus on what foods to avoid. Many diets are defined by what you can’t have, and a lot of health information centers around the dangers of eating too much of a particular kind of food. At the other end of the spectrum are the foods of which dietitians say we can’t get enough. These foods, many of which are vegetables, are the answer to what we should be eating if we want to stay healthy, especially as we age. Along with the popular and trendy items like kale, you will find cabbage on the list of some of the best foods you can eat. That is why you will find both of these superfoods on the long list of products we offer at Silva.
What's New and Beneficial About Cabbage
Cabbage has been a mainstay of traditional diets throughout the world for centuries in the form of dishes like sauerkraut. As is the case with many other foods, changing tastes mean there are always ingredients ripe for rediscovery. The current interest in healthy eating will only continue to change the way people eat, and having a range of ingredients that bolster the health credentials of the foods you produce is vital. From Thai cuisine to some fearsome fish tacos, red cabbage can add more than just color to dishes of culinary traditions from all over the world.
This is even more true now that people are becoming more informed (or sometimes misinformed!) about the particular ingredients they consume. Today’s consumer is increasingly conscious of what foods help ward off heart disease, which ingredients are rich in antioxidants, and even what foods help prevent certain types of cancer.
Silva carries three varieties of cabbage. Not only do we offer the nutritional superstar red cabbage, but we are also proud to offer dried white and savoy cabbage. No nutritional slouch, savoy (a combination of green and white cabbage) and white cabbage can offer different flavor, texture, and color options for dishes like coleslaw while still providing many of the health benefits of their red cousin. Though they lack the levels of anthocyanins that red cabbage does for fighting heart disease, our savoy or white cabbage are still hearty ingredients that pack a healthy punch.
Many consumers are looking for ways to eat healthier at every turn. There are plenty of ways to merely cut calories, but this is not always a great weight loss strategy on its own. It isn't enough to just cut the amount of carbs in your diet or simply lower the amount of calories you take in. Nutritionists are increasingly touting the importance of upping the amounts of proteins and certain vitamins and minerals if you are serious about losing weight. To attract customers who are digging deep and eating smart, you need to be producing foods that contain ingredients packed with the nutrients people are looking for, all while capturing them with the flavors they love.
Health Benefits and Nutrition Facts About Cabbage
Red cabbage, or Brassica oleracea, is one of the healthiest foods you can eat. Packing more vitamins, dietary fiber, and other nutrients in a standard serving size than many other foods, this single plant can help improve the function of your immune system, fight chronic inflammation, and even improve blood clotting. It can also do all this for one of the lowest prices per serving of any food providing this much nutrition.
Red cabbage (sometimes known as purple cabbage) belongs to a family of veggies called cruciferous vegetables. This group of nutrient-rich foods includes several of our offerings at Silva, including kale, broccoli, and cauliflower. Cruciferous vegetables are known to have tremendous nutritional benefits, many of which come in the form of chemical compounds such as sulforaphane. Red cabbage also contains high levels of anthocyanins, which belong to the flavonoid family of chemicals, and are known to be very effective in helping you steer clear of cardiac disease.
Red cabbage is absolutely packed with vitamins and other plant-based chemicals beneficial for preventing everything from heart disease to cancer. Red, green, and white cabbage are packed with vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin K, and iron. A single serving of green cabbage contains a substantial portion of your daily value of several nutrients, including 85% of your RDI (Recommended Daily Intake) of vitamin K and more than half of your RDI of vitamin C. It also contains important nutrients like vitamin b6, vitamin b12 manganese, and even beta carotene.
A veggie like red cabbage is a nutritional dream come true. For all you can get out of it, one of the best benefits is what you can't digest from it. Cabbage is high in insoluble fiber, which helps keep your digestive tract moving and even helps to ward off diseases like diverticulitis.
Keeping Cabbage Healthy
Red cabbage might be a phenomenally healthy food for you, but that won’t matter if improper washing and prep brings along potentially harmful bacteria and parasites. This is why we go the extra mile at Silva to ensure all our products, including leafy veggies like our red and savoy cabbage, are thoroughly cleaned, washed, and dried to give you full confidence in the quality and safety of the ingredients you are including in your final products.
We work hard to only source our products from the finest producers around the world, and we know that requires going the extra mile to make all of our dried vegetables and spices are processed to the highest standards. This includes our ZerOx pesticide-free insect treatment. This process uses no harmful chemicals, but is still able to produce a 100% mortality rate of potential insect pests, including nesting eggs. ZerOx is just one of the reasons you can use Silva products with confidence, no matter where they were grown.
There is a lot of nutritional potential sitting on the shelves at the grocery store, but making sure that nutrition is still available when those foods hit your plate is the real trick. This can be a particular challenge when including vegetables in prepared foods. At Silva we work hard to process all our dried vegetable products in a way that maintains the highest levels of nutrients possible. Being able to produce a nutritionally rich final product will help your customers know you are doing more than just hopping on the health bandwagon.
Including popular and even trendy ingredients can help get new customers to take a chance on your product in the first place. These days, that includes a growing list of nutritionally dense vegetables. Turning that first chance into a go-to product consumers will choose again and again is what you are aiming for. In a market packed with products vying for an edge in promising weight loss or other health benefits, this is no easy task. To get your final products from grocery store shelves to the kitchen cabinets and fridges of loyal buyers you need more than a promising package. Silva offers a full line of dried vegetables, along with some fruits, herbs and spices, to help you create products that are as mouth-watering and eye-catching as possible, all while bringing as much nutrition to the table as possible.
Talk to a member of our sales team today to find out more about including cabbage in your products, or request a sample online.