By Ariel Wright | Reporter

Fitting plenty of vegetables into your diet is something doctors have always recommended, but the answer to how we can get those nutrients has been diversifying with contemporary agriculture.

Microgreens are a relatively new food product popularized in the 1990s, coming from a combination of commercial crops like your typical vegetables, grains and herbs. They meet the needs your typical vegetables fulfill, but in a compact and nutrient-dense package.

Different types of microgreens have different types of nutrients, but generally, microgreens are a great source of vitamins A, E, C and K. Microgreens are more nutrient-dense than their fully grown counterparts. For example, a cup of arugula microgreens has 100% more vitamin A than arugula.

I’ve found that microgreens are an easy way to pack in nutrients, even on busy days when I don’t have time to make a salad to eat between classes. A favorite microgreen of mine is cantaloupe. It tastes like its name suggests, but it also has a refreshing cucumber-like flavor. I usually pack a cup of cantaloupe microgreens into a Ziploc bag before I leave for class in the morning to have as a snack later in the day.

In addition, there are many health benefits to microgreens, such as improving thinking and reasoning, reducing the risk and effects of Type 2 diabetes and possibly lowering the risk of certain types of cancer. These benefits are what piqued my interest when I first heard about microgreens and have encouraged my preference for them ever since.

Getting access to a wide variety of microgreens can be difficult, especially in Waco, but there are a number of ways you can get your hands on them. In Waco, you can get them from a hobby farm, such as Bee’s Greens. The owner, Rebecca Curci, also has a stand at the Waco Downtown Farmers Market that includes a wide variety of microgreens. Purchasing microgreens at the farmers market can be a lot cheaper than buying them from the store, so going there has been my first choice.

There are so many varieties of microgreens, so there’s something for everyone. They could be the answer to meeting your nutrient needs, so the next time you visit the farmers market or a store that sells them, give them a try.