Non-Starchy Vegetables List: What Counts and How to Eat Them

Non-starchy vegetables are the greens, crucifers, peppers, squash, mushrooms and stalks that can fill half your plate while adding very little starch. Two cups of raw spinach add about 2 grams of carbohydrate to a meal. Half a cup of baked sweet potato adds 20.7.9 That difference is why my blood-sugar protocols build every plate around them.23

The list below groups them by family, with the carbs and fiber in each serving from USDA records.

My Type 2 Diabetes Protocol ranks non-starchy vegetables among its top 10 foods, and introduces its ranked food list with this line:2

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What are non-starchy vegetables?

The line between the two groups comes from meal planning for diabetes. The ADA's Diabetes Plate gives non-starchy vegetables half of a 9-inch plate and puts starchy vegetables in the quarter it calls "quality carb."1 My own plate rule has the same shape: half the plate non-starchy color, a quarter protein and a quarter smart carbs.2

The most useful idea for reading the numbers below is net carbs, which is total carbohydrate minus fiber. As the keto diet guide explains, fiber doesn't raise blood sugar, so non-starchy vegetables, which are high in fiber, barely count against your carb budget.10

The complete non-starchy vegetables list

Every number in these tables comes from USDA FoodData Central: carbohydrate and fiber per serving, worked out from each record's per-100-gram values and its own cup or piece weight.9 Each row shows its serving; most raw vegetables are listed per cup and cooked ones per half cup, the ADA's serving sizes.11

Leafy greens and salad greens

Leafy greens are the lowest-carb foods on this page: a cup of most raw greens carries 2 grams of carbohydrate or less.9 I value them for their magnesium, folate and vitamin K, which support methylation, bone health and flexible blood vessels.12

Escarole, chicory and every kind of lettuce belong here too.11 So do dandelion greens and broccoli rabe.

Cruciferous vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables carry glucosinolates, among them glucoraphanin, which turns into sulforaphane when you chop or chew them.34 In my view, crucifers are powerful for lowering inflammation.12 Kale, collards, arugula and watercress are crucifers too; they're listed with the greens above.

Fruiting vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, squash and more

Botanically, these are the fruits of their plants, but in the kitchen and on the ADA's list, they're non-starchy vegetables.11 Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant are also nightshades, which most people handle well (see the safety section if joint pain is a concern).13

Stalks, shoots and pods

A medium artichoke carries more carbohydrate than most vegetables here, and it also carries the most fiber of anything in these tables, 6.9 grams.9

Onions, mushrooms, sprouts and others

Onions usually go in by the half cup or less, and garlic and scallions by the clove and the handful. In The Biblio Diet, Jordan Rubin and I also list sprouts of all kinds (broccoli, sunflower, pea shoots and radish), sea vegetables such as kelp, dulse and nori, and raw fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut, ideally made without vinegar.8 Microgreens fit here too; on my show, I put them right alongside sprouts.5

Individual vegetables vary around the 5-gram figure. Once you subtract the fiber, 41 of the 49 vegetables in these tables come in at 5 grams of net carbs or less per serving. The other eight (onions, leeks, rutabaga, turnips, jicama, water chestnuts, a whole artichoke and red bell pepper) are still on the ADA's non-starchy list; they simply carry more carbohydrate per serving.119

Starchy vegetables list

In Heal Your Cells, Dr. Cole and I group carrots, beets, pumpkin, winter squash and sweet potatoes with the starchy vegetables. They provide resistant starch and carotenoids like beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin, and unlike refined starches, these whole forms release their glucose slowly.12 The ADA lists carrots and beets as non-starchy,11 and their numbers sit between the two groups: half a cup of boiled carrots has 6.4 grams of carbohydrate, and the same amount of boiled beets has 8.5.9 The ADA also counts spaghetti squash, a winter squash, as non-starchy; at 5.0 grams per half cup cooked, it's listed with the fruiting vegetables above.119 If you're counting carbs, use the numbers in the tables.

The ADA also counts beans, peas and lentils as starchy vegetables that double as plant protein.1

Whole starchy vegetables are good carbs, and the way you eat them matters. Eat protein, fiber and fat first, and the starch last, never on its own.2 Cook potatoes and let them cool before you eat them, even later that day or the next; the starch in white potatoes, sweet potatoes and purple sweet potatoes becomes resistant starch, which I consider the number one starch for supporting butyrate production in your gut.14 On my own plate, the starch, a sweet potato or quinoa, tends to come at lunch with wild-caught salmon and a bunch of vegetables, and dinner runs a little lower in carbs, with a lot of steamed or sautéed vegetables.15 My vegetable list includes white potatoes, sweet potatoes and yams, along with corn when it's organic.8

Portions matter with this group: in large Harvard studies that followed adults for decades, starchy vegetables such as peas, corn and potatoes didn't share the lower risk of death seen with most other vegetables, and adding a daily serving went with weight gain over 4-year periods.1617 Kept to a quarter of the plate and eaten after your vegetables, they fit a healthy day well. For more on this group, see root vegetables.

Which non-starchy vegetables are healthiest?

On my show, I called broccoli sprouts and watercress probably the most beneficial greens of all.5 Sprouts are an exceptionally rich source of sulforaphane's building block. Johns Hopkins researchers measured 10 to 100 times more glucoraphanin, the compound your body turns into sulforaphane, in 3-day-old broccoli and cauliflower sprouts than in the mature plants.18

When my mom was recovering from cancer through nutrition and lifestyle alongside her medical care, broccoli sprouts were one of the foods we had her eat constantly, and cruciferous vegetables like kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower came next.6

I've also pointed out on my show that the average person gets about 10 different plants in their weekly rotation, and you want to be shooting for 20 to 30, because more plant variety typically means more diverse gut bacteria.14 An easy way to do it: if you're steaming vegetables, do broccoli and cauliflower one day, carrots and asparagus another and zucchini and squash the next.14 For a broader list that includes foods beyond vegetables, see nutrient-dense foods.

What are the health benefits of non-starchy vegetables?

Each card's badge rates the strength of the human research behind it.

Do non-starchy vegetables lower blood sugar?

My Insulin Resistance & Prediabetes protocol calls meal order one of its simplest tools: eating vegetables and protein first and carbohydrates last leads to a smaller blood-sugar rise than eating the same meal in the opposite order. Each meal includes 2 or more cups of non-starchy vegetables, eaten first.3

The clearest test comes from Weill Cornell. Eleven adults with type 2 diabetes, all taking metformin, ate the same 628-calorie meal twice, a week apart, so each person tried both orders. The meal was ciabatta bread and orange juice, grilled chicken, and a lettuce and tomato salad with steamed broccoli. Both visits started at nearly the same blood sugar before eating, 106.7 and 107.3 mg/dL. When they ate the vegetables and chicken first and the bread and juice 15 minutes later, their blood sugar was 28.6% lower at 30 minutes (112.0 against 156.8 mg/dL), 37.0% lower at 1 hour (125.6 against 199.4) and 16.8% lower at 2 hours (140.8 against 169.2) than when they ate the carbs first. Their insulin at 1 hour was about half as high (63.2 against 125.4 µIU/mL).4

The same team then tested 15 adults with prediabetes, who ate one meal three ways on three days, in random order. Eating the vegetables first, or the protein and vegetables first, cut the peak rise in blood sugar by more than 40% compared with eating the carbs first, and blood sugar stayed steady instead of swinging; with protein and vegetables first, the total rise over the test was 38.8% smaller.19

A 2026 review pooled 18 randomized trials of eating vegetables before carbohydrates, in adults with and without health conditions. Thirty minutes after eating, blood sugar was about 22 mg/dL lower than after the comparison meals, and at 1 hour about 9 mg/dL lower, with insulin lower at both points; by 2 hours it ran about 4 mg/dL higher. In people with type 2 diabetes, individual studies showed HbA1c falling from 8.3% to 6.8% over 24 months. The reviewers rated the certainty of the evidence very low, since 8 of the 18 trials carried a high risk of bias.20

Which vegetables you choose matters as well. In the Australian soup study, 18 adults without diabetes wore glucose monitors through both 2-week diets. On the crucifers, their blood sugar swung less across the day (its variation was 2.0 percentage points lower) and rose less after meals, an effect that came mostly from dinner, though their average glucose over the whole day didn't differ.27

Over the long run, leafy greens stand out. My Type 2 Diabetes Protocol ranks them first among its top 10 foods, for their magnesium and fiber.2 In a 2010 review of studies that followed people over time, the four that tracked green leafy vegetables found 14% lower risk of type 2 diabetes with greater intake.46 A 2018 update that pooled 11 such studies, with 754,729 people, found a smaller link, 9% lower risk, just at the line researchers use to rule out chance.47

To put this to work, start each meal with the vegetables, then the protein, and save the starch for last. The Type 2 Diabetes Protocol adds one more step: finish with a 10 to 15 minute walk.2 For targets, see normal blood sugar levels, and for a full plan, the insulin resistance diet.

How many servings of non-starchy vegetables should you eat a day?

The guidelines set a floor. The ADA suggests at least six servings of vegetables a day, where a serving is ½ cup cooked or 1 cup raw,11 which works out to 3 cups cooked or 6 cups raw. Most Americans fall short of even the old target: in 2019, only 10.0% of U.S. adults ate the 2 to 3 cups of vegetables a day that the 2020–2025 guidelines called for.29

Fiber is the other reason to fill the plate. The average person gets around 14 to 15 grams of fiber a day, and I want you to at least double that, to 30 grams or more.14 I'd aim for about 40 grams a day, 10 to 15 grams per meal, and you don't typically want to go over 50, since that can start to be too much.7 Vegetables make that easy: a cup of raw broccoli has 2.4 grams of fiber, a cup of jicama 6.4 and a medium artichoke 6.9.9 Inside your gut, bacteria ferment that fiber into short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate, which act as signals in your body and serve as an energy source.30 The healthier your gut, the healthier and younger your cells remain.12 For more, see how much fiber per day and high-fiber foods.

Here's what a day built this way can look like:

• Breakfast: Eggs scrambled with spinach, peppers and mushrooms.

• Lunch: A big salad of romaine, arugula and cucumber, or a plate of steamed vegetables, with wild-caught salmon and a small sweet potato eaten last.

• Dinner: Steamed broccoli and cauliflower with olive oil and sea salt, sautéed zucchini, and chicken or fish.

• Snack: Celery, radishes or jicama sticks with hummus.

How to cook non-starchy vegetables to keep their benefits

For cruciferous vegetables, I highly recommend steaming. I think it's the best: get a big vegetable steamer and steam big batches.7 Gentle cooking methods like steaming or sautéing can make certain nutrients more available, and lightly steamed crucifers are easier on the gut than raw ones.12 Lycopene in tomatoes becomes more available when they're cooked, and the beta-carotene in carrots and sweet potatoes is better absorbed after cooking with healthy fats.12 For more examples, see foods that are more nutritious cooked than raw.

Lab studies of broccoli back up the steamer. In one, steaming kept the most glucosinolates, vitamin C and chlorophyll of five home cooking methods.31 In another, steaming and microwaving caused no significant loss of glucosinolates in broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and cabbage, while boiling did, and about 90% of what boiling took out ended up in the cooking water.32 So if you do boil vegetables, use the cooking water in a soup or sauce.

Steamed vegetables are simple to finish: a little sea salt, or olive oil and sea salt, or do what I do and dip them in hummus.33

How broccoli makes sulforaphane

Broccoli carries mostly glucoraphanin, the precursor, and sulforaphane forms as you prepare and eat it.18 You can influence each step.

Fresh or frozen?

Both. My vegetable list says organic fresh or frozen vegetables are best,8 and the Dietary Guidelines call frozen vegetables with no or very limited added sugars good options too.28 The Dirty Dozen explains which produce is most worth buying organic.

Frozen broccoli needs one extra step to make the most sulforaphane. Freezing keeps its glucoraphanin,36 but the quick blanching before commercial freezing destroys myrosinase. In a study of 18 healthy adults who ate soups made from lightly cooked fresh or frozen broccoli, the frozen soup delivered about a tenth as much sulforaphane.35 Mustard powder puts the enzyme back. In a trial of 12 healthy adults who each ate 200 grams (about 7 ounces) of cooked broccoli twice, adding 1 gram of powdered brown mustard raised the sulforaphane their bodies absorbed more than fourfold, measured in their urine over the next 24 hours: 44.7 against 9.8 on the study's measure.37 In lab testing, a little raw daikon radish (0.25% by weight) added to frozen broccoli as it thawed let sulforaphane form without changing how the broccoli looked, and daikon still supported some sulforaphane formation after heating at 125°C (257°F) for 10 minutes.38 See frozen vs. fresh vegetables for more.

Add a healthy fat

Many of the colorful compounds in vegetables, such as lycopene, beta-carotene and lutein, need fat to be absorbed. In two studies of 11 healthy adults each, who ate the same meals with and without avocado, adding 150 grams of avocado to a salad raised beta-carotene absorption 15.3 times, alpha-carotene 7.2 times and lutein 5.1 times, and adding it to salsa raised lycopene absorption 4.4 times and beta-carotene 2.6 times; 24 grams of avocado oil worked as well as the fruit.39 Dress salads with extra virgin olive oil, add avocado, and cook your tomatoes and carrots with a little fat.

Non-starchy vegetables on keto and low-carb diets

On keto or any lower-carb plan, non-starchy vegetables should be the base of the plate. As the keto guide puts it, not eating enough vegetables is the biggest mistake of all, and the people who struggle on keto are usually the ones who drop vegetables.10 Keto is a tool, not a life sentence, so if your energy, sleep, cycle or thyroid feels off after a few weeks, cycle in some healthy carbs.10

Watercress, alfalfa sprouts, arugula, kale and spinach are among the lowest-carb picks, each with about a gram of carbohydrate or less per cup raw.9 For more, see low-carb vegetables and the keto diet food list.

Who should be careful with non-starchy vegetables?

The bottom line

Non-starchy vegetables: frequently asked questions

References

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Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNS

Doctor of Natural Medicine · Founder, DrAxe.com

Dr. Axe is a certified doctor of natural medicine, clinical nutritionist, and multiple New York Times bestselling author. He has spent 20+ years in clinical practice helping people heal at the root cause and founded one of the most-visited natural-health platforms in the world.

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