Trying to manage our diets to support our overall health and skincare is something most of us should at least be trying to do. The problem is that the most of the time that involves being told you need to eat one of the much proclaimed “superfoods” like kale or spinach. Regardless of how pointless the term “superfood” is, they are genuinely good for your on a number of levels like most dark, leafy greens. They kelp support your overall health and even have a few bonuses in there for skin health for the beauty conscious. Not everyone likes the taste of kale or spinach though. Sure, you could add them to a salad to ensure the mix of ingredients might do something help you ignore the taste, but it only helps so much for some people. Fortunately, you’ve got other options for getting in all the nice benefits of kale and spinach without having to deal with the taste. The downside is that you may need to admit your parents or guardians were correct and finally eat that broccoli.

Wait, Broccoli?
Yes, broccoli is actually an excellent way to take care of your overall health. There’s a pretty good reason for it too. You know how spinach and kale are wonder foods by most people’s standards? Broccoli is actually the exact same plant. The catch is that it was cultivated differently. A different emphasis during the cultivation gives it its unique look and flavor. You’re still dealing with the same plant at base though: wild cabbage. Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, kale, and still other vegetables are all just varieties of a single plant that we’ve bred into countless shapes over the course of our history. That means that your options for getting all the benefits of the “superfoods” just opened up greatly. There are plenty of broccoli dishes out that can help spice up the taste of the vegetable whether you want to eat them mostly on their own or want them as a supplementary part of a larger dishes. All you have to do is get cooking.

To Your Health
There are plenty of reasons that broccoli is good for your overall health and they all come back to the complex collection of nutrients that the food represents. Some of these benefits stand out above others though such as the potential impact on cholesterol levels. Broccoli helps you hear due to the amount of fiber contained in it. That fiber helps your body process bad cholesterol so that it gets removed from the body. The fiber goes even further in that it helps to regulate your digestive tract as well as ensuring that you feel that much less hungry after a meal with broccoli in it. Some studies have also shown that broccoli can play a large role in helping to minimize the chances of heart disease by promoting blood vessel health and reducing inflammation. Amusingly, there is also a hidden benefit to broccoli that not many people talk about. It actually contains some of the same eye health promoting compounds as carrots. This in turn makes the vegetable also good for helping to curtail eye problems as we age.

Soothing Your Skin
The benefits to your overall health are myriad and we only touch on a few of them, but let’s give a special mention to the anti-aging benefits your skin receives from broccoli. It is important to note that the rich color of the vegetable is at the heart of a major benefit that it gives: antioxidants. The flavonoids in broccoli are an excellent source of antioxidants that can help you delay aging to a degree. They do this by helping to eliminate free radicals in the skin and adding an inherent protection that reduces the potential issues from sun damage. The benefits don’t stop there though as broccoli also contains the big three skincare vitamins: A, C, and E. Each one of these on their own is enough to give you a boost, but all three together are good for helping to promote the production of collagen and elastin in the skin. These are responsible for your skin remaining firm and its ability to snap back into place after moved. Boosting production helps to keep your skin youthful.

Broccoli is one of those foods that most of us don’t really think that much about. We should be thinking about it more often though. It is a highly nutritious vegetable that helps our overall health and skin health immensely. Kale and spinach, varieties of the exact same plant as broccoli, get all the spotlight when the rest of their siblings are ignored. Don’t get trapped by the pop culture of “amazing foods”. Those will change over time, but it will never stop this family of greens from being incredibly healthy.