With Halloween not far away, it means we will be getting our children pumpkins to carve. But wait! Before you throw away those seeds, read below.
Below you will find some benefits of pumpkins, and ways you can incorporate them into your daily diet.
ChicagoHealers.com Practitioner Dr. Helen Lee, DC offers the following nutritional benefits of pumpkin and its seeds.
Nutritional Benefits of Pumpkins:
1. Vitamins: Pumpkin and its seeds contain nutrients such as vitamin C, E, iron, zinc, magnesium, potassium, both beta & alpha carotenoids (anti-oxidants which help prevent cell damage), and lutein (support healthy eyes).
2. Organ Health: The nutrients in pumpkin and its seeds help support the health of your kidney, bladder and prostate.
3. Sickness Prevention: Helps with minimizing osteoporosis, increases digestive health by helping with parasites & tapeworms, and lowering cholesterol.
4. Protein: Pumpkin seeds are high in protein.
5. General Benefits: Pumpkin seeds help the body get rid of parasites and other unwelcomed digestive inhabitants, and they contain healthy essential fatty acid oils.
6. Important Fact: Organic, raw pumpkin seeds will provide you with the most nutrients and enzymes.
ChicagoHealers.com Practitioner Dr. Helen Lee, DC recommends four ways to incorporate pumpkin into your everyday diet.
Easy ways to incorporate pumpkin into your diet:
1. A handful of raw pumpkin seeds as a snack or mixed with trail mix, on top of cereal
2. Pumpkin seed butter spread on toast
3. Pumpkin pie/desserts/pancakes/waffles
4. Pumpkin baked or browned with spices in risotto, chili, rice, spaghetti
Easy Pumpkin Seed Recipe
Once you have cleaned the guts out of the pumpkin, you will have a mess of pumpkin seeds. Have the kiddos remove the seeds and place in a bowl of water, let them soak. Once they have soaked and you have all the pumpkin string off them, pat them dry, put them on a cookie sheet, I add a little salt to mine, not a lot. Then bake them in the oven on 250 until they are golden brown. Make sure to stir every so often.
Pumpkin seeds are always a big hit in our family, and we usually carve more than one pumpkin just for the seeds. I know you can purchase just the seeds at the store, but it is so much funnier making a mess. 🙂
About Jammie Morey
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Yes, I do and I used to love them and sweet potatoes so much! But then I got Interestial Cystitis and can no longer eat anything with high amounts of potassium as it makes my bladder have huge spasms! I take pain meds on a daily basis because unfortunately, we put potassium in just about everything we eat because of preservatives. So, I have to take bladder pills and pain meds every day. Stopping by from the blog hop and now following you thru GFC and Facebook. I would love a follow back on both when you get the chance. Thanks so much for your help and have a great week! Just keep joining the hops and before long you will be right up there with everyone else on followers!
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Lots of info.. did not know that there were that many nutrients in pumpkin! Thanks for sharing!
Yes there is, a lot more than I would have thought!
I have been eating pumpkin quite often lately, in a healthy way. I roasted a pie pumpkin and made my own puree. I add it to my morning oatmeal with pecans and dried cranberries. We also roated some seeds with a bit of honey and maple syrup.