 Therefore, the researchers conclude, we advocate consumption of a diet high in nitrate, a natural strategy to treat hypertension, high blood pressure, pre-hypertension, and to protect individuals at risk of adverse vascular events, like heart attacks. So if you want to try this at home, either to boost your athletic performance or protect yourself from cardiovascular disease, which foods are the best sources? What do you think? Is it beans, bulb vegetables like garlic and onions, fruiting vegetables like eggplant squash tomatoes, green leafy mushrooms, root vegetables like carrots, beets, potatoes, or stem vegetables like asparagus and celery? Well, in milligrams per 100 grams serving, greens win the day. Here are the top 10 widely available sources. With all this talk about beet juice, you'd think beets might be number one, but they just barely made the top 10 list. Swiss chard has more, next comes oak leaf lettuce, then beet greens, basil, spring greens like mescaline mix, butter leaf lettuce, cilantro, rhubarb, and arugula, also known as rocket lettuce. Now, beet juice would actually be here, but we always want to choose whole foods to maximize the nutrition. As you can see, there's actually one stem vegetable, came in number two even, rhubarb. But eight out of the top 10 are green leafies, with the winner by a large margin being arugula. Eighteen times more nitrate than kale. I may have a new favorite vegetable. Ten years ago, a pair of Twin Harvard studies found the more fruits and vegetables you eat, the lower your risk of heart disease. The most powerful protector, green leafy vegetables, and now perhaps we know why.