Kaleidoscope Mix carrots feature five colors in one seed pack. / BURPEE SEEDS PHOTOS / SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER
- FILED UNDER
- Life
All Blue potatoes sport purple skin and blue flesh that turns pale when cooked.
Black Truffle tomatoes have purple-black color and strong, complex flavor.
Nutrition in colorful veggies not better or worse
Altering the color of a vegetable may not significantly change its taste, but it does change its nutritional composition, said Lori Graff, dietitian at Hy-Vee, 1990 Grand Ave., West Des Moines.
"It doesn't make it necessarily better or worse," she said. "But I think 'change' is a good word."
Carotenoids and flavonoids affect the color of plants and contribute different nutrients. A red carrot, for example, contains more lycopene than an orange carrot, Graff said.
Dietitians usually encourage people to eat foods in a variety of colors to consume a wide range of nutrients, she said.
Brightly colored veggies sometimes play with the human psyche, Graff added. In taste tests where people saw brightly colored vegetables, they perceived that they liked their taste better, she said.
Interestingly, Graff said, some of the "new" colors of vegetables actually are closer to their original colors than what modern-day consumers are used to.
"The carrot originally was more purple and yellow; it was not orange," she said.
Graff doesn't expect a cultural revolution over varied veggies.
"Your basic cauliflower is always going to be white. Your basic potatoes are still going to be white. Our basics will always be our basics," she said.
But most likely the trend is going to cause people to eat more vegetables because they're more fun, Graff said. "And that's a good thing."
- Jane Schorer Meisner
This spring's trendiest outdoor activity - digging in the dirt, in backyard plots or patio pots - promises a harvest of vegetables in colors so brilliant Mother Nature herself may be awestruck.
"The edible trend is bringing in a lot of young gardeners," said Justin W. Hancock, senior garden editor for Better Homes & Gardens' bhg.com and one of the owners of Loki's Garden, 29154 360th St., Van Meter (take Waukee/Booneville exit 117 off Interstate 80, go south three miles to the T intersection, then 1 1/2 miles west).
"I've been in this business for approximately 40 years now, and I've seen more new gardeners in the last two years than I have probably the previous 20 years," agreed Jerry Holub, manager of Earl May Nursery and Garden Center, 5910 Douglas Ave.
Young or old, gardeners have caught on to the fun of varying their veggies. And garden centers are pleased to oblige.
"As a horticulturist, I feel it's really important to expose people to beyond just what the norm is," Hancock said. "You can go to big-box stores and get the basics, and you can come here and other independent garden centers and find some interesting, exceptional things. I personally love giving customers the opportunity to experience something that they never even thought existed."
Actually, a lot of the non-traditional produce isn't exactly new.
"We have heirloom tomatoes in black and a couple striped varieties. We have a green one with yellow stripes called Green Zebra, and a red one with yellow stripes called Red Zebra. Green Zebra is one of the most well-known heirloom tomatoes, and it's highly favored in taste tests by heirloom tomato aficionados around the country," Hancock said.
"We had the blue potatoes last year," said Jim Goode, an owner of Goode Greenhouses, 1050 N.E. 50th Ave. "We have yellow, purple and red tomatoes and yellow, red and purple peppers. That's all stuff that's been around."
But suddenly the cool colors are especially hot. Holub said this spring, his store has sold hundreds of packages of seed for rainbow-colored carrots.
"And the hottest thing in onions this year is the Red Candy. We used to have Candy, which was a yellow one; now we have Red Candy, which is a red, sweet one," he said. "We have really cool sweet rainbow bell peppers. And we have a new blueberry called Pink Lemonade. It's a pink blueberry."
Holub said the colorful veggies "look good in the garden, look good in your salad, and look good on your platter on your table." But some gardeners plant them strictly as ornamentals.
"Rhubarb is very colorful when it's growing. We've sold a tremendous amount of that this year," Holub said.
"There's a plant called Swiss chard," Hancock said. "I think that's a brilliant ornamental. Also, I'm not a big fan of eating eggplant, but I love using it in containers. We sold through our first batch. We had a variety that had elongated purple fruits."
Loki's also sells interesting lettuces, Hancock said. "Some are green and have purple specks that look like you took a paintbrush and flicked purple on them. I have a very fun beet called Bull's Blood, and the foliage is a rich purplish color."
Other popular items include purple cauliflower called Graffiti and pepper plants in chocolate, red and yellow, Hancock said.
"And a really fun pepper called Carnival," he said. "It has fruits that are red, orange, purple, yellow, so it's very festive and multi-colored." Despite the gardeners' demand for seeds and seedlings to grow uniquely colored vegetables, it's still hard for restaurants to find a consistent supplier of them, said Carly Groben, chef-owner of Proof restaurant, 1301 Locust St. And the new-fangled produce shouldn't necessarily be prepared in the same way as traditional vegetables.
"We've used some, like the swirly beets and the rainbow carrots," she said. "Who doesn't want to eat a rainbow carrot? But you wouldn't want to take a product like that and puree it. You would want to just let it be what it is."
No comments:
Post a Comment