Purple Reigns! Why Purple Foods Are Good for You

Blueberries, blackberries, and purple grapes are bursting with these powerful compounds that add years to your life.  The purple pigments boost immune systems, thwart inflammation of the arteries and organs and prevent many cancers and other diseases.  Why stop with fruit?  Purple vegetables full of the same antioxidants. 

Purple Potatoes

I’ve found that purple produce has more flavors, too.  I wrote about my heirloom blue potatoes (which are really purple), which have a sweet, nutty taste when roasted that surpasses any white potato.

Purple Carrots

The skins of purple carrots add a citrusy, nutty taste to sweet orange cores. Both potatoes and carrots, by the way, began life purple. Potatoes first grew at high altitudes in Peru in shallow, rocky soil.  The purple pigment developed as a defense against the strong sunlight, preventing green spots that are full of toxic solanine.  Carrots sprang from the craggy mountains of Afghanistan, where light was also a problem.  Europeans bred the purple colors out of these vegetables, opting for blander colors that people would eat.

More Purple Vegetables

Plant breeders have developed a number of purple-hued vegetables in the last three decades.  And, they’re still working on incorporating purple into vegetables like sugar snap and snow peas.  You can find purple cauliflower, sweet potatoes, bush beans, artichokes, radishes, beans, and peppers in many specialty grocery stores and in seed catalogs.

Some, like Purple Royalty beans and Graffiti cauliflower, don’t retain the purple color when cooked normally.  Nor do purple potatoes.  They fade to an unappetizing gray.  Steaming the produce or microwaving stops the wash-out effect, and most of the purple pigment remains.  Roasting cauliflower and potatoes also retains the tint.

The pretty Filius peppers below have a wonderful bluish tinge and produce lovely, small violet-blue fruit that is quite hot. Production is heavy, thus creating a stunning display of color that can’t be missed! Perfect for ornamental landscaping or in pots.

Purple Tomatoes

Indigo Rose tomatoes are also full of purple pigments with these same antioxidants.  Plants are easy to find in seed catalogs and will be in most garden centers this spring.  I’m betting that we’ll see the tomatoes in grocery stores towards the end of the summer.

Blue Berries Tomatoes offered by Baker Creek are a very dark purple color cherry tomato, which means they are super rich in anthocyanins. Unripe, the fruit is a glowing amethyst purple. At maturity, it turns deep red where the fruit was shaded; the areas that received intense sunshine are purple so deep it’s almost black!

There are many, many more purple vegetable varieties (just browse seed websites!). This is an excellent time to order seeds for purple vegetables and incorporate them into your garden. 

Use our new garden planner app to plan your healthy garden, too.  Go to: https://gardenplanner.almanac.com/  and try it!  There’s a short video about how to use the app that will get you started in minutes.