Vitamin K is essential for quite a few of your bodily functions. It helps your blood clot so you don’t bleed too much and reduces your risk of some major diseases like Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, heart disease and cancer. So, how do you get this body positive mineral in your diet?
By eating the following foods:
Dark leafy greens. Kale has the highest amount of vitamin K, providing almost 700% of your recommended dosage in just one cup, but close seconds are dandelion greens, spinach, mustard greens and radicchio.
Herbs and seasonings. If you like to add basil, sage or thyme to your recipes, you’ll get over 60% of your suggested daily dose per tablespoon. Use scallions in your meals and you’ll increase this amount by 125% for every half cup. Also, cayenne, chili powder and curry offer some vitamin K. It’s not as much as the green herbs, but they do carry some nonetheless.
Green vegetables. Adding veggies like Brussels Sprouts, asparagus, cabbage and broccoli to your daily meal plan will help you keep your vitamin K levels right where they need to be. In fact, each one provides more than 100% of your daily needs in just one cup.
Prunes. Not only is this sweet fruit great for your digestive tract, but it’s also high in body healthy vitamin K, zinc and iron. Have one cup of these moist treats and you’ll get well over your recommended daily intake.
Soybean oil. If you use soybean oil when you cook, you may be upping your vitamin K intake without even realizing it as one cup contains more than five times what you require in a day. Although you shouldn’t take in this much oil for other health reasons, even a little bit will help get you the amount you require.
You have a lot of options when it comes to making sure this very important nutrient is prevalent in your diet. The key is to make it happen.