Did you know that eating pumpkin is good for your bones, eyesight and immune system?
Check out these vitamin all-stars.
Pumpkin, along with acorn squash and butternut squash, is a type of winter squash. Sugar pumpkin, also called pie pumpkin, has the most flesh and sweetest taste, and is the type most commonly used for baking. Pumpkin is rich in many important vitamins and minerals. According to The World's Healthiest Foods, pumpkin was so prized by Native Americans for its nutritional value that it was buried with the dead to provide them with sustenance in the next world. Pumpkin--low in calories and high in fiber--is a healthy dietary choice.
Vitamin A
Pumpkin is an exceptionally good source of vitamin A, needed for healthy vision, bone growth, and immune system regulation. The World's Healthiest Foods states that a cup of baked, cubed winter squash or pumpkin contains 7291.85 IU, or 145 percent of the recommended daily value. In addition to its other important functions in the body, vitamin A may help protect smokers--as well as those exposed to secondhand smoke--from lung cancer. In a review conducted by R. Baybutt and A. Molteni published in the 2007 issue of Vitamins and Hormones, the authors noted that animal studies showed that an active form of vitamin A had protective effects against emphysema, and urged continuing study of vitamin A for prevention and treatment of the disease.
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