You can add color to your next dinner party by inviting the eccentric with the orange hair who lives two doors down. Or you can do it a far quieter and healthier way: By bringing winter squash to the table. This golden-orange vegetable helps you live longer and better even if it won't offer to do the dishes. Here's just part of its healthy resume:
It reduces the rate of aging of your arteries. Varieties such as acorn and butternut are high in potassium, which is part of what makes your nerves and muscles contract when you want them to. It also helps regulate blood pressure, allowing your heart and kidneys to function properly. One cup of cubed squash contains almost 900 mg of this mineral, which gets you a long, tasty way toward the 3,000 mg a day we recommend.
It keeps your knees and hips moving. Winter squash is high in beta cryptoxanthin you don't have to spell it, just eat it and vitamin C, two nutrients credited with helping save joints.
It helps control your appetite. Squash is low in calories if you don't douse it in butter and brown sugar, which you don't need for great taste and high in fiber, so you eat fewer calories and feel fuller longer.
Our favorite ways to get it on your plate:
1. Serve as a side dish: Puree butternut squash with a bit of olive oil, lime juice and nutmeg.
2. Add cubed or mashed squash to stews, casseroles and stir-fries.
3. Cut it into the shape of French fries. Mix with a lot of garlic and a little olive oil and roast. This is a great treat while watching the game, and the taste can be so similar to fries that most guys don't even know that they're eating something that isnfried and is so darn healthy that it could really help them go out and play.
