From soups to seeds: The health benefits of pumpkin

With fall in the air, it's not hard to think about all the delicious flavours and foods associated with it – pumpkin pie, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin spice latte. Those tasty treats may sound unhealthy, but there are in fact nutritious ways to enjoy pure pumpkin.

Just one cooked cup of pumpkin has over 200 times the daily recommended value of beta-carotene.

“That's what keeps our eyes healthy. It helps with vitamin A and obviously that's a strong antioxidant. So, lots of research has linked it to preventing different kinds of cancer, heart disease,” says dietitian Angela Dufour.

Canned puree is a good alternative if you don't want to scoop out the seeds, chop and cook the pumpkin yourself – but buyer-beware when picking pumpkin products at the grocery store.

“A lot of pumpkin products, you'll notice, will have pumpkin written on them but on the bottom it might say pie filling, so a lot of people will buy the pie filling thinking it's the puree and then your products turn out completely different,” says dietitian Emily Foster.

Dufour and Foster suggest, if you're going to carve a pumpkin for Halloween get the family involved and save all your seeds, which are packed with nutritional benefits and can reduce the risk of heart disease.

“It actually has some phytosterols, so that's been shown to reduce that LDL, that bad cholesterol,” says Dufour.

While enjoying your favourite pumpkin delicacy, watch out for the sugar content, especially in the ever-so-popular treats like pumpkin spice latte and baked goods.

Dufour says the best way to savour pumpkin spice is to make your own.

“Make it with skim milk, throw a little bit of fat free whipped dressing on the top, throw a cinnamon stick in and you've got yourself a nice comfort cozy treat,” says Dufour.

Dufour suggests thinking outside the box. There's a variety of healthy ways to feast on this natural fall flavour.

“Just at a cup a serving, you get over three grams of fiber, so again, helps with that feeling full, that satiety feeling. So it actually can aid in a little bit of weight loss, helping you feel full longer in the day,” says Dufour.

Pumpkin can also help boost the immune system and includes about 20 per cent of your overall recommended intake for vitamin C.