The Underrated Vegetable This MD Puts In Almost All Of Her Meals

Ah, onions. You either love them (raw, cooked, even pickled) or despise the sight of them on your plate. Well, according to board-certified family physician Cate Shanahan, M.D., there are a host of reasons this underrated vegetable should make its way into every meal. In fact, when we asked Shanahan her favorite vegetable on the mindbodygreen podcast, she replied with zero hesitation: onions, and lots of 'em. 

It's no secret that onions boast some pretty impressive health benefits. First up: The vegetable is chock-full of antioxidants vitamin C and B, both of which can help stave off free radicals and reduce oxidative stress. 1They also contain prebiotic fiber, which helps to nourish our gut bacteria.

But the benefits don't stop there: Some research has even found onions to be associated with a lower risk of breast cancer (garlic, too, for that matter). That's because they're rich in flavanols and organosulfur compounds that "show anticarcinogenic properties in humans, as well as in experimental animal studies," Lina Mu, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of epidemiology and environmental health at the University at Buffalo, says regarding the study. 

In terms of the types of onions (red, yellow, white, or green), the antioxidant content varies in each—and red seems to gain most of the praise, but onions as a whole pack quite a nutritional punch no matter which you pick, with albeit slightly different flavor profiles.