Healthful cabbage deserves a lot of respect

In today's American diet, cabbage gets no respect! For centuries cabbage was a mainstay of diets in Europe and North America because it was easy to grow and store for use year-round. To preserve for eating in the winter, cabbage was made into sauerkraut. In the era of sailing ships, eating sauerkraut on long sea voyages helped prevent scurvy (a vitamin C deficiency), due to the high vitamin C content of cabbage. The vinegar and salt in sauerkraut kept it from spoiling without refrigeration.