Pick a Peck of Purple Foods

I started noticing how much I’m drawn to purple food when I eyed my first purple sweet potato just a few weeks ago at Whole Foods. One of my most popular purple posts is  Purple Sweet Potato Fries.

I then started researching purple food just because I was curious (and google makes it easy), and I discovered that carrots were originally purple and are making a purple come back. You can read more about the history of the carrot here.

Food history is fascinating and puts me in awe of nature and man’s “trial and error” discoveries which we often take for granted. If you could actually comprehend the depth of early man cultivating plant life, you would never again so easily opt for cheese twists when you could chomp on a carrot or eat a bowl of blueberries.

There I go, just assuming you needed to hear that, when you wouldn’t even be reading a blog called “Spinach Tiger” if whole and fresh didn’t appeal to you.

I tend to get  excited about things like red beets, purple cabbage, purple sweet potatoes, blueberries, cherries and purple green beans because I like how I feel when I eat these kinds of foods, and I am grateful to the scientists, farmers and nutritionists who have done the hard work and tell me how smart I am for eating these foods.

Why Eat Purple?
The dark purple pigment, known as anthocyanin, is a type of phytonutrient that belongs to the flavonoid family. Flavonoids are associated with lowering cholesterol, fighting heart disease and protecting the body against oxidative stress, which will help you age more gracefully, fight cancer and protect our brains.

Purple potatoes lower blood pressure, are high in fiber, and are anti-inflammatory. They also taste great.

I will never bore you with health nut benefits and history without delivering some really good food for you to enjoy. There is even cherry chocolate ice cream and a surprise cake coming.

And, just in case you’re wondering what the pansies are doing on this post, these were from my fall garden, and are perfectly edible, although probably not highly nutritional, can add some fun and beauty to a salad or a dessert.