Pickles
Pickles offer a crunchy texture and either a sweet or sour flavor, appropriate as a snack or part of your meal. The vitamin and mineral value of pickles makes them an option for meeting your nutritional goals as well. Pickles can be made from nearly any vegetable, but cucumbers are the most commonly sold pickle variety in the United States.
Including pickles, particularly dill pickles, in your diet is a good choice when you're trying to lose weight. A half-cup serving of dill pickles adds only nine calories to your meal plan. Sweet pickles have more calories -- 70 per half-cup -- owing to the sugar and other sweeteners used for flavor. Neither variety contains much in the way of fat, though. A serving of dill pickles has 0.1 g of fat, while a serving of sweet pickles has 0.3 g.
Eat a serving of pickles and you get a boost in your vitamin K intake. One serving of dill pickles contains 30.2 micrograms of vitamin K, while a serving of sweet pickles has 36 micrograms. Pickles serve as the stereotypical food item craved by pregnant women; since pregnant or breastfeeding women require 90 micrograms of vitamin K each day, snacking a serving of pickles can help these women meet their nutritional requirements while satisfying their cravings. If you are a woman but not pregnant, you still require 90 micrograms of vitamin K. The recommended daily intake for men stands at 120 micrograms.
Pickles, both sweet and dill, provide small amounts of B vitamins, which work together to turn the foods you eat into energy. You get less than 5 percent of your daily needs of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B-6 and folate from a serving of pickles. In addition to helping you to meet your energy requirements, various B vitamins have other purposes. Folate, for instance, helps prevent some birth defects in fetuses, and thiamin might ease the symptoms of metabolic disorders.
A serving of dill pickles provides 142 IU of vitamin A, but sweet pickles contain significantly more: One serving has 584 IU. The daily suggested intake is 5,000 IU. The vitamin A available in pickles does good things for your eyes, including possibly playing a role in preventing cataracts, macular degeneration and night blindness.
Due to the brine in which pickles soak, this snack contains moderately high levels of sodium. A serving of dill pickles has 678 mg of sodium, while sweet pickles contain 350 mg of sodium per serving. Avoid consuming more than 1,500 mg of sodium each day, as it can trigger high blood pressure and fluid retention. Look for low-sodium pickle varieties.