Thanks to the internet, nowadays it’s really easy for us to find various recipes for homemade, healthy meals. Besides the creativity, those recipes are truly remarkable especially in promoting the healthy lifestyle and providing the healthy alternatives to popular commercial foods. The same goes when it comes to lasagna, as there are many varieties of ingredients which can complement much more than the traditional lasagna.
Switching to vegetable lasagna is a great diet choice even if you’re not a vegetarian. Because of the extra nutrients found in some vegetables, this version of lasagna is guaranteed to provide some extra benefits, more than making your friends go green. Therefore, without further ado, in the following paragraphs we will discuss the health benefits of vegetable lasagna.
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1. Rich in Antioxidants
There’s no lasagna without the liberal usages of tomatoes, garlics, and even peppers or chilis. If there’s any reason to go crazy with the spices to use, it is lasagna. That’s of course all for good reasons, because other than making the dishes richer in tastes, some of the ingredients, especially the ones mentioned above can provide us with plenty antioxidants.
First there is lycopene contained in tomatoes and peppers, whose benefits ranging from fighting free radicals to prevent cancers. There are even studies which mentioned that having two servings of tomato sauce per week can help protecting our bodies from prostate cancer. Then there is the whole army of antioxidants in garlic whom some study reported to be potent against free radicals. Lastly, peppers are the most well-known antioxidant source, which not only has Vitamin C to keep you healthy, there’s also this unique and powerful antioxidants called capsaicin, which is responsible for the hot and spicy tastes.
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2. Great Source for Calcium
Not many parents out there who would ask their children to eat more lasagna. That’s kind of unfortunate, because as we all probably knew already, lasagna consists mostly of cheese. Being made of milk, cheese consequently contains hefty amount of calcium which is not only good for kids, but also for women whose body need more calcium at times. Calcium is needed mainly for maintaining bone health, and to support the functions of heart, muscles and nerves.
Although it should be kept in mind that normally cheese used in lasagna can be really high in calories which comprised mostly by saturated fats. That could be a bad thing because of the potential health problems related to excesses of saturated fats. Therefore, always opt for low-fat cheese whenever you go shopping for your next party.
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3. Good for Diabetics
Replacing your typical lasagna with vegetable lasagna might be benefits not only you but other people around you too. The possibilities of including vegetables in lasagna and the benefits that come with them are just too great to miss. The choices include but not limited to eggplant, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, beans, and some spices. The good thing is, opting for vegetable lasagna will allow those who are concerned about calories and cholesterol to join in the fun.
Including those vegetables will provide the necessary dietary fiber, thus making it faster to feel full, in turn reducing cravings for other treats. This makes it good especially for diabetics who will undoubtedly have difficulties in choosing the treats suitable for them without worrying about the amount of carbs and added sugar.
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4. Helps in Maintaining Heart Health
By choosing vegetable lasagna, you can turn the whole notion of party food to healthy food completely. The good thing about lasagna, as much as some other meals, is the flexibilities of which it comprises of. Take for example, the pasta. By replacing the pasta which is mostly made of refined grains with the ones from whole grains, you can make all the good there is in your lasagna.
Ever wondered why whole grains cereal, like oatmeal, is recommended for heart health? That is because whole grains are rich in dietary fiber, which not only it makes you feel full quickly, it also can improve your blood cholesterol level. Lower cholesterol levels mean lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabeters. All the more reason to make your hearty pasta a little more heart-friendly, don’t you agree?
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5. Helps in Controlling Weight
Good news for those who are on diet as well. While lasagna might not be compelling for those on diet, serving vegetable lasagna might save your dieting friends from their boring diet menu. Not only that, by eating vegetable lasagna instead of other high calories and saturated fats foods, they’ll also feel full faster thus leaving no time nor space for other snack cravings. So it’s all good and everyone’s happy.
Vegetables are generally high in dietary fibers and low in calories, therefore allowing less energy to be stored as fat, and the dietary fiber makes it possible for the body to go on without wanting more calories than necessary. By switching up the fine grain-based pasta with the whole grain-based one, the amount of dietary fiber can be multiplied and makes it even healthier and much more fulfilling than regular lasagna.
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6. Gives the Necessary Daily Energy
While lasagna is typically had on parties, it also makes an excellent daily meal. Whether having it for breakfast, or bring it for your lunch, lasagna provides you with the much needed energy especially when time is the essence and you need something that both practical and can fulfill you for the rest of the day.
Even better when it’s vegetable lasagna. While meats aren’t all that bad, by adding more vegetables in your lasagna, there are more energy sources to choose from. For example, spinach and beans can provide you with protein as well as minerals such as iron, magnesium and manganese which play important parts in energy productions.
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7. Excellent Protein Source
Switching up your regular lasagna with vegetable lasagna opens up a whole new world full of possibilities. We already learned that by switching common ingredients with much healthier alternatives, we practically leaves all the bad things behind and come with much better stuffs. That said, vegetable lasagna can be a great source of protein for your various needs.
Not only from meat, protein in vegetable lasagna indeed comes from wide choice of sources. It can be from the cheese, it can also comes from the beans, the vegetables and even from the pasta, especially if you opt for the high-protein version. By packing them together as lasagna, you can have all the protein sources possible with less fuss.
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8. Helps Enhancing Metabolism Process
To be fair, what makes some comfort foods bad is not only the high amount of saturated fat they have, but also the lack of necessary nutrients to make up for them. Fortunately, by adding more vegetables to replace those high carbs and high fats pasta, meats and cheese, you can have more Vitamin B complex which naturally contained in meats, some vegetables and beans. Vitamin B complex mostly work in maintaining the activity of nervous system and metabolism process in the cells.
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9. Maintains Healthy Circulation
By now we must already learned that vegetable lasagna is rich in iron. It’s a good news especially for women who need way more iron than men. But then again, it is generally a good thing to have decent intake of iron daily. That’s because our blood needs iron for the production of hemoglobin, which in turn helps in carrying oxygen all over our bodies. Therefore, consuming vegetable lasagna can helps maintaining the blood circulation especially for us who are active and tend to be deficient in iron daily.
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10. Contains Many Essential Vitamins and Minerals
Tomatoes, chilis, peppers, and beans are all very good vitamins and minerals sources respectively. Ranging from vitamin A, B, C to vitamin K, that’s just all the good there is in putting them together in lasagna. Moreover, when it comes to minerals, they’re all the different beasts. We have no doubts about the minerals contained in beans, combined with spinach, zucchini, and peppers, they make a solid, well-rounded healthy meal.
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So, those are some health benefits which you can get from vegetable lasagna. By reading this article you should learn that it is possible to have comfort food while staying healthy.
However, it should be put into account that even healthy food can become unhealthy if eaten excessively. Keep in mind that lasagna mainly consists of pasta and cheese which can be high in calories depending on the ingredients. You should opt for whole grain pasta and low fat cheese in making the vegetable pasta whenever possible.
Finally, vegetable lasagna prove to be an excellent go-to for your next dinner party meal. Not only is it fun to make and eat, serving vegetable lasagna to your party guests can inspire them to eat healthily as well, realizing that even healthy food can taste as good, which in turn helping in creating the healthy lifestyle. Thanks for reading, we hope you can always stay healthy and stay informed.