Celery is sort of a character actor of the vegetable world. Always playing the supporting-actor to other more well known items like peanut butter or cream cheese, cause by itself it really doesn’t pack a lot of flavor. But it is good for you… here’s what the folks over at NutritionData say about celery in summary;
The good: This food is low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Pantothenic Acid, Calcium, Magnesium and Phosphorus, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Folate, Potassium and Manganese.
The bad: This food is high in Sodium, and a large portion of the calories in this food come from sugars.
Ok, sugars… a high portion of calories come from the natural sugars, but one serving is still only bout 2g of sugar, and does have 1g of protein. As part of a post-WLS diet, celery can be a decent source of not only fiber but also, and maybe more importantly, it adds CRUNCH!
Celery, because it’s so high in water is actually pretty easy to digest, except for one lil issue… fibers. No, not dietary fiber, there are natural fibers that run along the back of the celery, or the ribs. We’ve all come across them before, right? Pre-op they get caught in your teeth, post-op… well.. those fibers don’t chew well, and why push it when it’s so easy to do something about? And that’s today’s quick-tip. (took me long enough to get there, didn’t it?)
When you’re gonna do something with celery, take a minute and strip the fibers from the ribs… it’s easy enough to do with a paring knife, just sort of catch the edge of the celery at one end and peel those lil suckers right back.
Once you get them started, they peel back pretty easy. You can also use a vegetable peeler, but I don’t drag it out just for something I can do just as easy with a knife. Do the same from both ends, and you’ll end up with a bird nest of them like this…
If you’re chopping the celery up in small chunks for going in a salad, you don’t really have to do this. The strings end up small enough to swallow easy enough, but if you’re doing sticks to stuff, give this a shot.
Thanks for the tip.
No problemo! Dats what I’m here for.