A Salad a Day

Genesis 1:29

“And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

I guess that many people who see me would not assume that I am the sort of man to eat salads. However, a recent scientific study has suggested that a daily intake of salads could improve the memory. I forget where I read about it.

A recent study reported in England’s Daily Telegraph newspaper talked about the great nutrition inherent in eating a variety of different plant materials. Studies have suggested that half a cup of spinach a day might not give you the large muscles of Popeye, but that it could improve your memory. Researchers from Rush University in Chicago carried out a ten-year study on people with an average age of 81, ascertaining how much they were consuming of leafy green vegetables such as spinach, kale, and collard greens. All such foods are high in vitamin K. Cognitive function clearly declined across all groups in this age range, but this process was measurably slower in groups that were consuming 1-3 servings of leafy green vegetables per day.

If you are a vegetarian, then I respect that. Personally, I enjoy eating meat and believe that God gave us permission to eat meat after the Flood. However, there should always be vegetables in our diet. Different vegetables appear to have different health benefits. We can assume that these benefits were even greater before Adam’s Sin, when Adam and Eve were given just plants to eat. It is surely part of God’s wisdom in how He looks after us that He divided the essential nutrients we need among different plants so that we could have a varied, tasty, and interesting diet.    Author: Paul F. Taylor

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for the wide variety of interesting foods that You have given to us, and thank You for the health benefits that so many of them confer on us. Amen.

Ref: < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/12/20/salad-day-keeps-memory-11-years-younger-new-study-finds/ >, accessed 12/26/2017. Image: Victor M. Vicente Selvas, donated to Public Domain.