Chard, like other green leafy vegetables, has highly nutritious leaves, making it a popular component of healthy diets. Chard has been used in cooking for centuries, but because of its similarity to beets and vegetables such as cardoon, the common names that cooks and cultures have used for chard may be confusing; it has many common names, such as silver beet, perpetual spinach, beet spinach, seakale beet, or leaf beet.