Apium graveolens or celery, as its commonly known, is a vegetable from the Apiaceae family. Used either for its leaf stalk, seeds or roots the health benefits of celery vary quite a lot. Perfect for flavoring soups, stew or used as a dried herb, celery can be used in some interesting recipes.

Now let’s take a look at its health benefits.

What are the Health Benefits of Celery?

1. Antioxidant Celery Health Benefits

Celery contains conventional antioxidant nutrients such as vitamin C, beta-carotene and manganese. Alongside them celery has a high content of phytonutrients. These phytonutrients have been shown to prevent the risk of oxidative damage to body fats and risk of oxidative damage to blood vessel walls.

Another interesting characteristic of its antioxidant properties is  represented by its furanocoumarins. They are responsible of preserving the natural living conditions of celery, making it last longer. However, if furanocoumarins levels rise, they do so at the expense of celery’s other phytonutrients.

2. Anti-Inflammatory Celery Health Benefits

Alongside its antioxidant properties, the health benefits of celery also extends to anti-inflammatory support. This is due especially because of its phenolic acids, flavones and flavonols. These celery extracts are regarded to offer some unique anti-inflammatory properties. They basically prevent inflammatory reactions in the digestive tract and blood vessels. In some animal researches celery presented the ability to help protect the digestive tract and liver.

The regular intake of celery juice or its extract to prevent unwanted inflammation. The molecules TNF-alpha (tumor necrosis factor alpha), NF-kB (nuclear factor kappa), IL-1B (cytokines interleukin 1B) and IL-8 (interleukin 8) are kept in check by celery. These molecules are responsible of playing a role in the body’s inflammatory responses and their activity is lowered due to regular consumption of celery.

3. Cardiovascular Celery Health Benefits

Many cardiovascular diseases result from high levels of oxidative stress and inflammation in the bloodstream. As a result diseases such as atherosclerosis tend to become very common in today’s world. Phenolic substances found in celery such as phthalides not only gives its unique flavor, but also acts as a muscle relaxant.

Studies have shown that the nervous system activity related to muscle relaxation is improved. This is due to the regulating properties on calcium and potassium flow levels. Phthalides are regarded to also lower the blood pressure within blood vessels by acting as a natural diuretic.

All of these studies have involved celery seeds, oils or other extracts. Nevertheless, the unique properties which celery exhibits may provide natural remedies for illnesses that were otherwise regarded hard to treat.

4. Digestive Tract Celery Health Benefits

Celery also contains pecting-based polysaccharides which offer special protective benefits to the stomach. Polysaccharides are known to be molecules that are used by cells as a means to store simple sugars. Pectin-based poysaccharides such as apiuman not only act as an anti-inflammatory, but also protects the stomach lining, preventing illnesses such as gastric ulcer.

5. Anti-Cancer Celery Health Benefits

It is largely known that oxidative stress and excessive inflammation are factors which provoke the birth and spread of many cancer types. Researchers are very keen on discovering potential benefits of dietary intake of celery. They are interested on the cancer prevention properties which this vegetable appears to have. Although there have been many speculations on celery benefits for stomach, colon and bladder cancer, we are looking forward to see what further research on this topic will unveil.

Healthy Recipes

We compiled a short list of tasty, healthy recipe ideas containing celery for you and your loved ones.

• Beetroot & Butterbean Hummus with Celery Wedges.
• Cheddar Cheese Dip with Celery Wedges.
• Tomato and celery salsa with celery dippers.
• Garden salad of traditional beetroot, radish and celery with smoked trout.
• Tuna steaks with sweet and sour celery.
• Celery, avocado and walnut salad with crispy bacon.
• Winter stew with celery, chorizo and cannellini beans.
• Roasted cod topped with celery, walnut and black olive stuffing.
• Celery and radish coleslaw.
• Pot roast pheasant with celery, white wine and fennel seeds.
• Sate dip with celery wedges.

Nutritional Information

As we already discussed, celery is an important source of phenolic and phytonutrients that contain antioxidant and anti-infammatory properties.

The phytonutrients present in celery are:

• caffeic acid
• caffeoylquinic acid
• cinnamic acid
• coumaric acid
• ferulic acid
• apigenin
• luteolin
• quercetin
• kaempferol
• lunularin
• beta-sitosterol
• furanocoumarins

This wonder-vegetable is also an excellent source of folate, potassium, dietary fiber, manganese and pantothenic acid. In celery can also be found a series of vitamins such as A, B2, B6, C and K.

Health Benefits of Celery: Short History

Celery has been known to have been used as back as 1000 BC. It seems that even in antiquity this wonderful vegetable has been used for medical purposes. In Ancient Egypt as well as in the Roman Empire, celery was being used as a medicinal plant.

Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a Roman encyclopaedist known for his medical work, often prescribed celery seeds in pills for relieving pain.

In the study “An ethnopharmacological survey for potential angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors from Indian medicinal plants”, which can be seen in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health,   the results have amazed a lot of medical practitioners. The findings of the study pinpointed that celery juice reduces hypertension in 87.5% of patients tested.

Thank you for reading our article on these amazing health benefits of celery. We hope it was most informative and useful in providing not only information on celery health benefits but also on some tasty recipes.

Feel free to leave us a comment and share suggestions of other wonder-veggies or lovely recipes.