Eating these vegetables raw can reduce the risk of disease

A doctor revealed vegetables that eating them regularly can help reduce the risk of infections and cancer.

Dr. Poonam Desai, an emergency medicine physician, explained in a video on TikTok that the best vegetable you can eat to stay healthy is onions.

“Onions contain something called quercetin, which is what gives onions their powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits,” Dr. Desai explained in the video, which has been viewed more than 40,000 times.

Quercetin offers a long list of health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart disease, high cholesterol and prostate cancer.

This natural compound is well-studied and often used in functional nutrition and functional medicine to help calm an overactive histamine response in the immune system, according to Gina Volpe, a registered dietitian at WholeisticLiving .

The type of onion and how you eat it can affect quercetin levels. According to Dr. Desai: “Red onions contain more quercetin than white or yellow onions, so I choose to eat red onions.”

She added: "If you cook onions, it reduces quercetin levels. So I chose to eat onions raw, so I could maximize the health benefits."

She pointed out that the outer layers of onions contain a greater amount of quercetin than the inner layers. So "next time you're going to pick an onion, pick a red onion and try to eat it raw and try to eat the outer layers."

For those who can't eat onions raw, quercetin can also be found in other foods, such as red wine, green tea, berries and apples.

A previous study found that phytochemicals such as quercetin-3-glucoside found in apples have therapeutic properties that help protect against some diseases and cancers.

Research shows that the antioxidants in quercetin get rid of chemicals in the body called free radicals, which damage cell membranes, tamper with DNA and can cause cell death.

Quercetin is commonly used for cardiovascular diseases. It may also help reduce swelling, kill cancer cells, control blood sugar, and help prevent heart disease.