Sugar snap peas are a cross between garden peas and snow peas. Consume them lightly steamed, in stir fries or raw with dips. The entire pod is edible. A 1-cup serving of sugar snap peas counts toward the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid's minimum recommendations of 2½ to 3 cups of vegetables daily. Before cooking or eating sugar snap peas, snap off the stem and pull off the "string." Avoid overcooking snap peas because they turn mushy and unpalatable.
Calories
One cup of raw, whole sugar snap peas contains just 26 calories. This makes them a low calorie dense food appropriate for most low-calorie diets. Adding a generous amount of sugar snap peas to stir fries decreases the overall calorie-count per serving.
Fiber
A cup of sugar snap peas contains 1.6 g of fiber. The Institute of Medicine recommends that men under age 50 consume 38 g of fiber daily and women, 25 g daily. Those over age 50 have slightly lower recommendations: 30 g for men and 21 g for women, due to decreased calorie consumption.
Macronutrients
A cup of sugar snap peas only has a trace of fat, 1.7 g of protein and 4.76 g of carbohydrates. While "sugar" is in the name, sugar snap peas have only 2.52 g of naturally occurring sugars. The American Heart Association recommends limiting sugars added by manufacturers, not the natural types that exist in fruits, vegetables and dairy.
Lutein
Sugar snap peas contain 4.66 mg of lutein per cup. Lutein is an antioxidant important to skin and eye health. The Lutein Information Bureau says that, on average, Americans get only 1 to 2 mg of lutein daily--falling short of the 4 to 8 mg recommended by U.S. Department of Agriculture Dietary Guidelines.
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