Plant Diversity and Gut Health: Why It’s Worth Expanding Your Vegetable Routine
Spinach in the smoothie. Broccoli with dinner. The same bag of salad greens in the refrigerator.
You can be consistent about eating vegetables and still spend most of your week eating the same few plants.
That familiar rotation is easy to overlook. We pay attention to getting our greens, but how often do we think about how many different kinds we’re actually eating?
Research into plant diversity and gut health gives us a compelling reason to look more closely. There’s a much bigger world of plants—and plant compounds—beyond our usual favorites.
The research that put plant variety on the map
In 2018, researchers with the American Gut Project reported a finding that helped change the conversation about diet and the gut microbiome: people who reported eating more than 30 different plant types per week had more diverse gut microbial communities than those who reported eating fewer than 10.
This observational study examined people’s eating patterns and microbiomes. Its findings helped draw attention to the range of plants in a person’s diet, alongside familiar dietary labels such as vegetarian or omnivore. [1]
That gives us another useful way to think about everyday eating. Alongside “Did I eat my vegetables today?” we can ask, “How much variety did I give myself this week?”
Different plants offer a different menu for your microbes
Your gut contains a community of microorganisms with different abilities to break down food. Some bacteria are equipped to use plant materials that others cannot. A diet containing different fibers and resistant starches can therefore provide a broader range of resources for that community. [1]
Think about the difference between a week built around one favorite vegetable and a week that includes leafy greens, beans, berries, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. The second brings more kinds of plant material into the mix.
This is why dietary biodiversity—the variety of plants we eat—is such an interesting lens on nutrition. It encourages us to notice what our habits leave out.
Your usual salad may be a perfectly good choice. Adding another leaf, a different bean, or a handful of seeds gives you an opportunity to explore more of what plant foods offer.
Microgreens reveal just how much variety plants contain
Microgreens are young, edible plants harvested early in their growth. Their small size makes them easy to underestimate, but researchers have found considerable nutritional variety among them.
In a study of 25 commercially available microgreens, USDA and University of Maryland researchers measured vitamins and carotenoids and found substantial differences between varieties. Red cabbage stood out for vitamin C, garnet amaranth for vitamin K, and green daikon radish for vitamin E. [2] [3]
A separate study examining five Brassica microgreens documented a wide range of polyphenols, including anthocyanins and flavonols—families of naturally occurring plant compounds. [4]
That’s what makes exploring different microgreens so interesting. “Greens” can sound like a single nutritional category, when individual varieties bring different combinations of nutrients and plant compounds.
Broccoli is one part of that story. So are red cabbage, amaranth, radish, and the many other varieties that rarely make it into a familiar meal rotation.
Why making these microgreens accessible became our mission
Watercress. Tatsoi. Amaranth. Purple kohlrabi. Red cabbage.
There’s an extraordinary range of microgreens beyond the familiar handful. Yet many of the varieties we include are largely out of reach for everyday shoppers, especially in their young microgreen form.
At Lake Forest Farms, we felt strongly that more people should have the opportunity to enjoy them. We believed this variety deserved a place in everyday meals, including for people who would never grow their own microgreens or go searching for specialty growers.
Making that possible became a personal mission.
It was extraordinarily difficult to bring that vision to life. Bringing all these varieties together in a form people could easily use every day took a tremendous amount of work. We kept pursuing it because we believed the result was worth making available.
MiracleMicrogreens™ is the result: 20 microgreen varieties together in one bottle, including those less familiar plants alongside broccoli, pea shoots, sunflower shoots, arugula, and more.
We freeze-dry the microgreens and finely mill them into a pure blend that fits into a tiny 1/8-teaspoon scoop. Stir it into yogurt, blend it into a smoothie, or mix it into a favorite dressing.
You get to enjoy a selection of microgreens that might otherwise never become part of your routine, in food you already love.
A tremendous amount of work went into making that little scoop possible. We took on that work so bringing more microgreen variety into your day could be easy.
More plant variety, made easy
I already eat vegetables every day. What could MiracleMicrogreens add?
Think about which vegetables show up most often. Now consider how regularly you enjoy watercress, tatsoi, amaranth, or purple kohlrabi.
MiracleMicrogreens brings those together with broccoli, red cabbage, pea shoots, and more—20 microgreen varieties in one blend. It makes a wider selection available every day, including varieties that might rarely make it onto your shopping list.
Your usual meals become an opportunity to enjoy something beyond your usual greens.
Why bring different microgreens together?
Different microgreen varieties contain different combinations of nutrients and plant compounds. Research comparing varieties has documented substantial differences in vitamins, carotenoids, and polyphenol profiles. That variety is part of what makes these young plants so interesting. [2] [4]
With MiracleMicrogreens, you can enjoy a selection together. Familiar favorites and plants you might never have thought to try are already blended and ready to use.
How can I fit that much variety into my daily routine?
Start with something you already eat.
A level 1/8-teaspoon scoop adds our blend of 20 microgreen varieties to yogurt, a smoothie, a favorite dressing, or another everyday meal. The microgreens are freeze-dried and finely milled, making the serving just 0.4 grams.
Keep the bottle beside something you use at breakfast. You have an easy place for the habit, without finding, preparing, and storing each variety separately.
There’s a whole world of greens beyond the handful you usually buy. We’ve brought 20 varieties together so you can enjoy more of that world in one tiny daily scoop.
Explore the 20 varieties in MiracleMicrogreens.
Research references
- McDonald D, et al. (2018). American Gut: an Open Platform for Citizen Science Microbiome Research. mSystems.
- Xiao Z, Lester GE, Luo Y, Wang Q. (2012). Assessment of vitamin and carotenoid concentrations of emerging food products: edible microgreens. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
- USDA Agricultural Research Service (2014). Specialty Greens Pack a Nutritional Punch.
- Sun J, et al. (2013). Profiling polyphenols in five Brassica species microgreens. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.