Another cruciferous vegetable, cabbage is often overlooked by the modern homemaker but this fiber-rich vegetable is practically bursting with nutrients like vitamin C, which can reduce your chances of developing certain cancers and help prevent the spread of cancer once it has developed in the body. Cabbage also helps stimulate the liver and supply a disease fighting cocktail of phytochemicals.

Cabbage Varieties: There are over a hundred of varieties of cabbage these days, from round to cone shape, with flat or curly, tight or loose leaves in green, white, red, and purple colors. The most common is the round, light green variety. Red and purple variety takes longer to mature, so these types are generally not as tender as green varieties. The raw shredded red cabbage makes a striking addition to traditional green salads. The Chinese cabbage (Bok Choy) is not true cabbage, but is actually Chinese chard.

Nutritional Facts:

• High in fiber and low in calories (a cup of cooked cabbage contains less than 30 calories).
• Cabbage is a rich source of vitamin C (with 50mg per cup).
• Cabbage also contains significant amounts of potassium, folate, and beta carotene, a precursor of vitamin A.

Benefits:

• May help prevent colon cancer, and malignancies (breast, uterus and ovarian) stimulated by estrogen. It is because cabbage contains chemicals that speed up the body's metabolism of estrogen.
• Drinking pure cabbage juice helps heal peptic ulcers. Researchers have found that this benefit comes from methionine, an amino acid found in small quantities in cabbage. It takes about a quart of cabbage juice a day for a week or more to notice any improvement.
• Cabbage is a good detoxifier; it purifies blood and removes toxins (primarily uric acid which is major cause for rheumatism, gout, arthritis, skin diseases, etc. This detoxifying effect of cabbage is due to the presence of vitamin C and sulphur.
• Cabbage is very rich in fiber. This helps retain water and forms the bulk of the food and the bowels. Thus it is a good cure for constipation and related problems.

Preparation Tips:

• Steaming and stir-frying cabbage will preserve the most nutrients; these fast-cooking methods also reduce the sulfurous odor released when cabbage is heated.

• When cooking with red or purple cabbage, be aware that the compound (anthocyanin) that gives the cabbage that beautiful color will also turn it blue when it is cooked along with any alkaline substance (since tap water is often full of alkaline minerals, be sure to add about 1 teaspoon of acidic agent, such as lemon juice, vinegar or wine) to the pot when using tap water. If your red cabbage begins to take on that blue tinge in any recipe, the addition of the acidic agent will usually bring back the original color.
• Don't cook cabbage (especially the red or purple cabbage) in an aluminum pot, which causes a chemical reaction that discolors the vegetable and alters its flavor.
• Red cabbage can be used interchangeably in most standard cabbage recipes but be aware that the color will leach into any other ingredients.

Note: Boiled or steamed cabbage loses a portion of the vegetable's vitamins and minerals and what is left is inorganic sulfur. The dead sulfur settles in the pockets of the stomach and often causes bloating and flatulence.