What Is The Difference Between Vegetables And Garden Vegetables?

Vegetables and greens are not the same thing. However, it is not so easy to determine what makes them different. If we ask our primary care physicians and nutritionists, or if we go to the academic literature, what we can find are firm recommendations to sink our teeth into greens and greens, often several times a day, due to the great nutritional value of their vitamins, minerals, and fiber (which also helps with the dreaded intestinal transit) and their low calories, protagonists of the latest advice on healthy eating.

This, however, does not help at all to resolve the doubt that we are facing. The difference between vegetables and greens is not found in their nutritional attributes, so what distinguishes them must be found in an aspect other than the purely nutritional one.

What are vegetables?

In the words of the Spanish Food Code (CAE), vegetables are “any herbaceous horticultural plant that can be used as food, either raw or cooked.” Therefore, this definition includes edible vegetables that are generally grown in a garden, that are consumed directly or that need some type of culinary preparation to do so. Among the vegetables, we find:

• Bulbs such as garlic, onion, chives, leek, shallot or shallot.
• Stems such as chard, shallot, palm heart and borage, white, green or wild asparagus, celery, kohlrabi, cinnamon, sugar cane, rhubarb, and young bamboo shoots.
• Roots such as licorice and valerian.
• Tuberous roots such as carrot, beet, turnip, jicama, radish, daikon, sweet potato, yuca, arracacha, parsnip, Jerusalem artichoke, salsify, quequesque, taro, Chinese taro, chago, ginseng, wasabi, and konjac.
• Tubers such as potatoes, ginger, turmeric, tiger nuts, yams, olluco or ruba and mashua.
• Seeds such as sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, flax and poppy seeds, peanuts, pine nuts, quinoa, chia, amaranth, buckwheat, goji berries, and legumes: chickpeas, beans, peas, lentils, broad beans, green beans, and green peas.
• Flowers such as cauliflower, broccoli, romanesco, and artichoke.
• Fruits such as cucumber, tomato, zucchini, pumpkin, eggplant, pepper, and squash.
• Leaves such as lettuce (Roman, Batavia, Iceberg, Salanova, French or Trocadero, red leaf or Lollo Rosso, red chard and tatsoi, endive, escarole or chicory, lamb’s lettuce, arugula, radicchio ), spinach, chard, cabbage, cabbage (white, Brussels, Milan, Chinese and red), collard greens or forage cabbage, kale or curly cabbage, arugula, watercress, dill, parsley, basil, tarragon, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme, sorrel, radicchio, mizuna and tatsoi .

Of course, cereals and fruits, which have their own characteristics, are excluded from this list.

What are vegetables?

The Spanish Food Code defines vegetables as ” vegetables in which the edible part consists of their green organs (leaves, stems, inflorescences).”

Difference between vegetables and garden vegetables

So, we could say that vegetables are, in fact, green vegetables, and that’s it. As we can see, for both the former and the latter, there is no official unitary taxonomy, at least scientific or botanical, since the differentiation is very loose and there is no consensual agreement. The proposals are, to put it one way, popular, from the market garden and from walking around the house with peelers, pans, and pots, not at all technical.

The edible parts of vegetables and greens

Vegetables, whether or not they are green, can be classified according to the family to which they belong: Amaryllidaceae; Brassicaceae or Cruciferous; Composites or Asteraceae; Cucurbitaceae; Fabaceae or Legumes; Grasses or Poaceae; Chenopodiaceae; Solanaceae; and Umbelliferae or Apiaceae. They are also differentiated according to the carbohydrates they contain: less than 5%, between 5 and 10%, and more than 10%.

But perhaps the most appropriate way to classify them is in the order given above, by the parts of the plant that are edible. For example, the bulbs, stems, roots, seeds, flowers, fruits, and leaves. If you want to eat a potato, you will eat the tuber itself, never its stem, leaves, flowers or fruits, a kind of small tomato. However, if it is broccoli, for example, you can eat everything from the stem and the flower head to its leaves.

Note that this does not indicate a difference between vegetables and greens, but rather the differences between each of the vegetables or greens themselves.

Forms of consumption and culinary uses

Here, too, we do not have a technical classification, but rather a practical and “colloquial” one. While some vegetables can be consumed as a main dish, others serve as a side dish and others are just a mere ingredient. We can also distinguish differences between vegetables and greens depending on whether they are consumed uncooked, such as garlic, onion, lettuce, tomato or carrot; and those that are cooked to avoid possible indigestion and worse damage, such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, legumes, potatoes, cabbage or cassava.

However, one element that we should consider because of its great importance in this matter is the nutritional one: many vegetables (and therefore also greens) provide us with fewer nutrients after cooking. As a general rule, raw vegetables nourish us better. When they are heated, several of their biological components disappear or become unavailable. However, many vegetables continue to be an excellent source of nutrients even after cooking. For example:

• Spinach is rich in iron, vitamin C, vitamin A, and folate. Cooking spinach helps release the iron and makes it more bioavailable to the body.
• Tomatoes are a good source of lycopene, an antioxidant that has been linked to reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer. Cooking tomatoes increases the availability of lycopene to the body.
• Carrots are known for their vitamin A content, which is essential for good vision. Cooking carrots helps break down cell walls and release more nutrients.
• Broccoli is rich in vitamin C, vitamin K, folate, and fiber. Although some of the vitamin C can be lost during cooking, cooked broccoli is still an excellent source of nutrients.
• Pumpkin is rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium, and fiber. Cooking pumpkin helps make it more tender and improves the digestibility of its nutrients.