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G95-1268 Lettuce And Other Salad Greens, Susan D. Schoneweis

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension: Historical Materials

This NebGuide discusses different salad greens, their uses and nutritional value.

Lettuce has been an important part of human diets since ancient times. It was customary for the Romans to precede their gargantuan banquets with refreshing lettuce salads in the belief that lettuce enhanced the appetite and relaxed the alimentary canal. It had other uses, too. Dried lettuce juice was used to aid sleep in Elizabethan times and through World War II lactucarium, a sedative made from wild lettuce extracts, was used in hospitals¹. Today, lettuce is used as the main ingredient in most salads and it is joined by …