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Arugula

Arugula is a peppery cruciferous green, very low in calories, a good source of vitamin K, and carries glucosinolates and dietary nitrate.
  • Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 1 cup raw (20g)

  • Calories: 5
  • Calories: 5
  • Fiber: 0.3g
  • Sugar: 0.4g
  • Protein: 0.5g
  • Fat: 0.1g
  • Key Nutrients
Vitamin K, Vitamin A, Folate
  • Key Vitamins
Vitamin K (18% DV), Folate (5% DV) and Vitamin K (18% DV), Folate (5% DV)
  • Essential Minerals
Manganese (3% DV), Potassium (2% DV), Manganese (3% DV), Potassium (2% DV), and Manganese (3% DV), Potassium (2% DV)
  • Glycemic Impact
What’s This?
  • Glycemic Index (GI)
  • GI Score
  • Glycemic Load (GL)
  • GI per 100g:
  • Impact
  • Glycemic Scale Rating
Low
0-55
Medium
56-69
High
70+
0 20 40 60 80 100

This food has too little carbohydrate for a glycemic index to be measured.

Fresh arugula leaves on white background
Fresh arugula leaves on white background
  • Health Benefits:

    • A cruciferous green, so it carries glucosinolates, the sulfur compounds behind its peppery bite. When a leaf is cut or chewed, the plant's own enzyme turns them into sharp isothiocyanates, and erucin is one of the main ones in arugula. That is chemistry you can taste, not a cleanse.

    • Provides vitamin K, which contributes to normal blood clotting and to the maintenance of normal bones.

    • It also carries dietary nitrate. Bacteria on the tongue turn nitrate into nitrite, and the body turns nitrite into nitric oxide, a signal that relaxes blood vessels. Whether food nitrate lowers blood pressure is unsettled: a Danish cohort saw less cardiovascular disease from about 60 milligrams of vegetable nitrate a day (Bondonno and colleagues, European Journal of Epidemiology, 2021); the Nurses' Health Study found no link with coronary heart disease in women after adjusting for lifestyle and diet (Jackson and colleagues, British Journal of Nutrition, 2019); a 12-week trial coaching adults with raised blood pressure toward 250 to 300 grams of nitrate-rich vegetables a day ended with lower 24-hour systolic pressure than a control group whose pressure rose (van der Avoort and colleagues, Journal of Nutrition, 2021); and a five-week trial of leafy greens carrying about 300 milligrams of nitrate a day, in adults aged 50 to 70 with raised pressure, found no statistically significant difference in the change in 24-hour systolic pressure compared with control (Sundqvist and colleagues, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2020). None of this was a trial of a serving of arugula.

    • Extremely low in calories, with a peppery flavor that lifts salads and cooked dishes.

    • Related reading: Why Vitamins and Minerals Matter More Than You Think

    On nitrates, since the Dirty List also has an entry on them: the two pages are not in disagreement. Nitrate becomes nitrite, and nitrite can go two ways: into nitric oxide, as above, or, with certain amines, into nitrosamines. Those amines are found in many foods and some are made in the body, and among the substances that block that reaction the most studied is vitamin C, ascorbic acid (Tannenbaum and colleagues, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1991). US rules for pumped bacon require sodium ascorbate, the salt of vitamin C, or its close cousin sodium erythorbate alongside the nitrite (9 CFR 424.22). The full explanation is on that entry.
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What’s This?

Glycemic Index (GI)

GI measures how fast a food raises blood sugar.

Glycemic Load (GL)

Tells you how big that rise actually is once portion size is factored in.

Example:

Watermelon has a high GI (it digests quickly) but a low GL because a normal serving doesn’t
contain many carbs so the actual blood-sugar impact is small.

Why it matters:

Understanding both GI and GL gives you a clearer picture of how foods affect your blood sugar both the speed of the rise and the true impact based on the portion you eat.