Are Halloween Pumpkins Scary or Healthy?
Are you preparing for Halloween, carving out pumpkin after pumpkin for the children, creating scary faces to ward of any signs of evil? You may have noticed that all this monster head-making has left you with rather a lot of pumpkin flesh. So whether you are making soup or a pie we felt you should know what sort of nutritional properties your pumpkin is offering you. For readers who are surrounded by pumpkin seeds then you may be interested in our post we wrote on those, you can read it by clicking here.
What is in a Pumpkin?
Nutrients are based on 100 grams
- Calories: 10
- Protein: 0.8 grams
- Carbohydrates: 6.5 grams
- Fibre: 0.5 grams
- Fat: 0.1 grams
- Calcium: 21 milligrams
- Phosphorus: 44 milligrams
- Potassium: 340 milligrams
- Zinc: 0.32 milligrams
- Iron: 0.8 milligrams
- Magnesium: 12 milligrams
- Vitamin A: 369 micrograms
- Vitamin B1: 0.05 milligrams
- Vitamin B2: 0.11 milligrams
- Vitamin B3: 0.6 milligrams
- Vitamin B5: 0.298 milligrams
- Vitamin B6: 0.061 milligrams
- Vitamin C: 9 milligrams
- Folate (folic acid): 16 micrograms
- Beta-Carotene: 3100 micrograms
(Now the pumpkin looks more friendly than scary! – Beeble)
What do these figures mean?
Lots of vitamin A …
Following the recommendations of the US for our daily intakes, these figures show us that the pumpkin has superhero sized Vitamin A properties. 100 grams of the pumpkin has a grand total of 41% of your RDA (recommended daily allowance – Beeble). That is a lot of Vitamin A which our bodies use for our vision, maintaining good skin health, our immune system, embryonic development and reproduction, reducing our risk of heart disease and finally antioxidant properties.
… as well as beta-carotene
The pumpkin is also very high in another nutrient that we don’t normally cover: carotene. Carotene is an orange photosynthetic pigment which explains the colour of the pumpkin and is abundant in other orange vegetables like the carrot. The pumpkin has 29% of your RDA of carotene; to be more precise it is the beta-carotene that it contains. So is it good for anything? Well the body breaks it down in the small intestine and stores it in the liver. The liver holds on to it and releases it as vitamin A as and when the body needs it. Yes, even more vitamin A for you from the fabulous pumpkin.
A Warning: don’t eat too many!
With such a high level of vitamin A you must be careful not to eat too much pumpkin. Vitamin A is fat soluble and so not as easy to dispose of any excess as it is with water soluble vitamins like vitamin C. That means that there is a high chance that the body will hold on to any excess vitamin A which could result in vitamin A toxicity. This can lead to nausea, jaundice, irritability, vomiting, blurry vision, headaches, muscle and abdominal pain and weakness, drowsiness and altered mental status. Too much vitamin A has also been linked to osteoporosis and hip fractures. A recent study showed that as much as 75% of the developed world may be having excess vitamin A, so take care.
There is not the same problem with carotene as it is non-toxic, however it may result in a yellowing of the skin. So eat enough you could look like one of the Simpsons! But do be careful as yellowing of the skin can also be a medical sign of something else: more serious illnesses.
Summary
Enjoy your pumpkin: it is a very healthy food, but always remember whilst it is important that we have our Vitamin A, too much of it can be a problem. My advice is to consume no more than 100 grams of pumpkin in one day. Sorry if I have ruined your Halloween – but remember: all in moderation!
Enjoy your Halloween, your soup and your pie!
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:24 am
Interesting! For some reason I always associate pumpkins with being bitter. I’ve actually never tasted a plain pumpkin(In my mind I think they would taste bitter from the smell). I do like pumpkin seeds though.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Well it certainly looks scary from the picture you provided
. However, looks quite nutritionally dense plus it has the bonus of only being 10 calories per 100 grams. I’ve never tried pumpkin either. Maybe next Halloween.