The leaves of lettuce give us many pleasurable textures and tastes in various preparations and there is very few calories in lettuce, with only one calorie in a lettuce leaf. Since watching weight is made easier by eating dishes made with lettuce, with only 6% make up of fats, 16% of protein and 76% of good carbohydrates, lettuce is a great food to eat as part of a calorie controlled diet..It is refreshing to eat lettuce because of the best dark, green leafy vegetable that releases so much good stuff into each bite, such as Vitamin B6. Eating the fibrous leaves makes the stomach feel full. Just how many calories in lettuce are there? Eating an entire head of iceberg lettuce that weighs one pound is only 109 calories.
The reason there are so few calories in lettuce is because most of the composition of lettuce is water. What make the calories count in lettuce are the cellulose structures in the leaf. Romaine lettuce is denser than Iceberg with a tad more calories making the number of calories dependent on the dense concentration of proteins in the leaves. Romaine has a more bitter taste than Iceberg with more antioxidants and Vitamin K and 2 more calories in lettuce leaves of the same weight of Iceberg.
Lettuce has been considered an aphrodisiac by the Ancients in Egypt. Physicians in Ancient Greece agreed with the Romans and Egyptians that eating lettuce had powers of relaxation that helped their patients fall asleep. When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue to the new world, he took lettuce with him for those in the Americas to one day enjoy their low calorie salads, make their BLTs and to enhance the flavor of other foods. Some would say that without lettuce, most sandwiches would fail to tantalize their gastronomic targets.
One of the popular types of the Cultivars of the lettuce that is consumed for salads and other satisfying dishes is Butterhead lettuce, which is buttery in texture. Butterhead comes in varieties of Boston, Buttercrunch, Bibb and Tom Thumb. Many would say that what makes the savory, texture-rich experience of the Chinese stir-fry dishes is Chinese lettuce, with the sword shaped leaves and semi bitter taste. The cabbage shaped Iceberg is the most commonly used lettuce that restaurants and sandwich shops often thrive on. Crisphead or Iceberg lettuce are most often used in their house salads and as a key ingredient to sandwiches. The Iceberg leaf is considered the mildest type of lettuce, offering a crunchy texture with no bitterness or pungency in the taste buds. For darker appeal and variety in a salad bar, there is Romaine with sturdy long dark leaves.
There is little difference between the calories of Romaine and Iceberg. Romaine and Butterhead are much higher in folate, Vitamin C and Vitamin A than Iceberg. The low calories in lettuce and its versatility make it a popular choice in many diets.
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