Greens typically include asparagus, collard greens, spinach, turnips, and turnip greens. They are full of health benefits, vitamins, minerals, and cancer fighting properties. Many recommendations include eating steamed greens. However, this is not always a good idea. While steamed vegetables do maintain a higher degree of vitamins and minerals, they can also irritate some people's stomachs.

Many an upset stomach is caused by people being encouraged to eat raw vegetable salads year round. It is best to eat raw vegetables when in season, fresh from the garden. This is especially true of vegetables such as lettuce, radishes, turnips, and other green leafy vegetables.

Greens can be stored frozen then eaten at a later date. However, they quickly lose some of their health benefits and may not be as digestible when thawed. They study of digestibility issues is just beginning. Whether the problems occur because of pesticides, pollution, chemical changes within the food, or natural seasonal bacterial changes in the digestive tract, is currently unknown.

Regardless of how eaten, or how well cooked, always wash produce thoroughly.