Garden Cress vs Watercress – Which is Healthier?

Our Verdict

When comparing garden cress to watercress, we picked the garden cress.

Why?

While watercress is (rightly!) popularly viewed as a superfood for its nutritional density, the garden variety actually outperforms it.

In terms of macros first, garden cress has more protein, carbs, and fiber, while also having the lower glycemic index. Not that anyone’s getting blood sugar spikes from eating any kind of cress, but still, by the numbers, this is a clear win on the whole for garden cress in the category of macros.

When it comes to vitamins, garden cress has a lot (tens of times) more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B6, B7, B9, C, K, and choline, while watercress has (slightly) more of vitamins B1, B5, and E. An easy win for garden cress.

In the category of minerals, garden cress has more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium, while watercress has more calcium. Another clear win for garden cress.

Taking a quick peep at polyphenols in case there’s anything to offset the above, garden cress has 13x more kaempferol (13mg/100g to watercress’s 1mg/100g), and/but watercress, in its favor, has quercetin (at 4mg/100g), which garden cress doesn’t. So, we say this category is also a win for garden cress, but watercress has its merits too.

👆 Let’s clarify: those numbers are all very good, and garden cress’s 13mg/100g kaempferol is absurdly high; most such quotients of most edible plants are orders of magnitude smaller; not to shoehorn in another vegetable, but just to give an example, savoy cabbage, which won on nutritional density vs bok choi recently, has 0.26mg/100g kaempferol and 0.12mg/100g quercetin (which were already very respectable numbers), so you see the difference in cress’s exceptionally generous delivery of these polyphenols!

Adding up the sections makes for an overwhelming win for garden cress!

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc ← cress is a great example of this!

Take care!