Squash

Food · Vegetable · Food, Typed Supps

A summer squash, picked young — which is why it is watery and mild rather than sweet and starchy like a pumpkin.

Stage by stage

Intake (Cell walls broken): Chewing and cooking rupture the soft cell walls and release the contents.
Stomach (Bulk without energy): High water content fills volume for very little energy, which is where the satiety value comes from.
Absorption (Vitamin C and folate): Water-soluble vitamins are absorbed here — and are the ones lost to boiling water beforehand.
Conversion (Carotenoid to retinol): Beta-carotene needs fat to be absorbed and is then converted to vitamin A as required.

Time to effect

Hours: Vitamin C from a serving peaks in the blood within a few hours and is not stored, so regular intake matters more than a large one.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Keto, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.

In season

August to December in the northern hemisphere, February to June in the southern.

Satiety

The satiety index is measured on 240 kcal servings. At 26 kcal per 100 g that is 923 g of this, which is not a serving anyone eats — so the index has nothing to say about it.

Environmental footprint

0.5 kg CO2e and 108 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Other vegetables" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £1.4 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 26
Protein: 2.7g
Carbohydrate: 3.2g
of which sugars: 2.9g
Fat: 0.2g
of which saturated: 0g
Fibre: 0.5g
Sodium: 1mg

Food vs. supplement

No supplement matches this. The point of squash is bulk and water with a useful amount of vitamin C attached, which is precisely the thing a capsule cannot deliver.

Kitchen tip

Steam or roast rather than boiling and draining. If squash is boiled, keeping the cooking water for a sauce or soup recovers most of the vitamin C that went into it.

Common myth

"Squash is basically a small pumpkin, so it has the same nutrition." In reality: Summer squash is harvested before starch and carotenoids accumulate. Compared with pumpkin it has a fraction of the beta-carotene and far less carbohydrate — it is a watery, low-energy vegetable rather than a starchy one.