There’s a war on. You may not have heard about it; it’s focused on coleslaw. According to MSN.com, “What began as a simple opinion on coleslaw has quickly escalated into the Twitter war of the century.”

It started in early March 2019 when Ashleen Suhaila tweeted her comment on the “proper way to eat coleslaw” along with a video.

In her video, Suhaila dropped the coleslaw in the trash. Clearly she isn’t a fan. Others responded with outrage. Since Suhaila first posted the video, it has garnered more than 5 million tweets, along with thousands of retweets and responses. All for coleslaw.

I’m not willing to join the war (I believe there are more important things to fight) but here’s my opinion. If you don’t like coleslaw, don’t eat it. But find a Brassica you like, because it’s so good for you.

One study demonstrated that Brassica supplementation helps to decrease cholesterol. Another found that eating at least two of the Brassicas, dinosaur kale and purple cabbage, resulted in significant antioxidant activity. An increase in antioxidant activity means your body can better counteract cell damage (that comes naturally as a part of life) and even repair damaged cells.

Studies have shown that antioxidants can play a role in reducing the cell-damage of free radicals (the body’s bullies, that push everybody around) and encourage nice cells to become bullies as well, resulting in “free radical waste products” made up of our broken, injured and deformed cells and weakening our bodies in different ways.

The Brassicas include: cruciferous vegetables, cabbages or mustard plants. According to Wikipedia, “Brassica species and varieties commonly used for food include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, choy sum, rutabaga, turnip and some seeds used in the production of … the condiment mustard.” They also include kohlrabi, collard greens, kale (as mentioned earlier) and Brussels sprouts.

So if you don’t like coleslaw, or cabbage, don’t eat it. I know people who don’t like very many vegetables but love Brussel sprouts. That’s sure not me, but if that’s you, eat those to your heart’s content and skip the coleslaw. How (or if) you cook vegetables matters, however. Raw is great, but boiled or steamed for some of the Brassicas actually increases the antioxidant activity.

Instead of focusing on a war over what we prefer to eat, let’s focus instead on being the healthiest possible we can be by eating many Brassicas daily.