I always stress eating in season, organic and pesticide free; preferably harvested from local, small to medium sized family farms that practice regenerative farming. Boy, that is not only a mouthful, but also it is very hard to do all the time. What I have to rely on are the store’s food labels that detail where the food was harvested and pesticide and organic status. But what is missing from all these descriptors is that I also try to mix up the food colors. Not just for having a beautiful plated dish to serve, but also I know that the various colors reflect differing nutrition.
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What About Purple Food?
We all have an often vague sense that we should eat the rainbow, both vegetables and fruit, because they contain antioxidants or other compounds that, somehow, play a critical role in protecting our bodies from those damn free radicals. But beyond using those terms, we do not really understand what it all means.
We Absorb Plants’ Nutrients
So let’s start with what we know and go from there; starting with Health.Harvard. The argument they are making is that when we eat plants we absorb all sorts of nutrition from those plants including phytonutrients (aka antioxidants and flavanoids, 1) that help protect the plant and critically us as well.
- Colorful fruits and vegetables contain a variety of phytonutrients that are compounds that provide these plants their rich colors, distinctive tastes, aromas; and also strengthen a plant’s immune system.
- Specifically, WebMD explains, those phytonutrients protect the plant from germs, fungi, virus, bugs, and the other threats they face.
- When we eat those plants, those same phytonutrients may be absorbed by our body, and in turn may help protect us from chronic diseases, some cancers and heart-disease effects.
- Epidemiological research suggest that certain diets that include fruits and vegetables are associated with a reduction in chronic diseases risk, including cardiovascular diseases and cancers (2).
Caution about Supplements (3): Phytonutrients, in the amounts consumed in a healthy diet, are likely to be helpful and are unlikely to cause any major problems. Some people assume that because phytonutrient supplements come from “natural” sources, they must be safe and free from side effects, but this is not always true. Check with your doctor and pharmacists before consuming any non-food-consumed phytonutrient.
Pigments
For a very long time, several important health organizations (the American Institute for Cancer Research (4), the American Heart Association (5), and the USDA Food and Nutrition Service), have advocated eating “the rainbow” of plant food-based colors.
Plants have colors, or pigments, that help define the specific nutrients they are likely to contain. HeatherMangieri writes, that each basic color signifies a whole host, or family, of compound, chemical structures and properties, as well as color. For instance:
- Carotenoids: yellow, orange, red
- Anthocyanins: red, blue, purple
- Chlorophylls: green
- Betalains: red
Flavonoids
The colors of produce and flowers come from phytochemicals in plants that reflect light, and thus produce the color of the item, along with the vitamins, minerals, trace elements, and fiber we rely on. Purple-ish colored food contains two main flavonoids, called anthocyanin and anthoxantins. Purple food also contain lypocene, manganese, potassium, VitB6, VitC, VitD and VitK1.
Health Benefits
Often when assigning health benefits to certain food, I quote places like HealthLine, that in this case write red-purple colored foods promote bone health, and that the inherent flavonoids these food contain may help lower inflammation and arthritis pain.
The flavonoids mentioned above offer hints about specific health benefits they may have.
- Anthocyanin: This flavonoid contains a strong antioxidant and may reduce heart disease risk and high cholesterol, may help memory, prevent urinary tract infections, and may help prevent certain cancers (6).
- Anthoxantins: This flavonoid possess anti-diabetic (Type 2), anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and anti-obesity potential, as well as may help in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases (7).
Many research studies hint that this particular color is very beneficial for us, but others have made the leap into calling these foods, ”superfoods.” However, studies have not yet proven all the claims to be true, and research is ongoing. Here are some of the studies:
Eating the Rainbow
The Rainbow Diet appeared in book form in 2006 written by Chris Woollams. But it is believed that the concept was created by Dr. Deanna Minich, who wrote her own book in 2018. The idea is that if you eat a very colorful, veggie and fruit filled diet, you will be absorbing nutrients that may be beneficial to the prevention of certain diseases, cancers, mental states, etc.
All the above lead to the concept of ”eating the rainbow” which has been verified by further studies on the concept (8 2011; 9 2011;10 2015)
What are Purple Foods
Here is a list of the foods per all the various articles and studies I read, additionally I decided to link to a USDA chart listing the amount of Anthocyanin that is in the various tested items.
- Natural Anthocyanin containing food
- Acai berries
- Aubergine (egg plant skin)
- Blackberries
- Blackcurrants
- Black and red raspberries
- Black salsify
- Blood oranges
- Blueberries (and European Bilberries)
- Boysenberry
- Cherries (some list sour cherries specifically)
- Chokeberry*
- Cranberries
- Dates
- Elderberries
- Olives (purple to black)
- Pomegranate
- Prunes
- Purple asparagus
- Purple carrots
- Purple (to blue) corn
- Purple grapes
- Purple peppers
- Purple plums
- Purple potatoes
- Purple sweet potato
- Radicchio
- Raisons
- Red cabbage
- Red onions
- Red pear
- Strawberries
- Betalain (antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties) containing food
- Beetroots (dark purple flesh and skin)
- Chard stems
- Rhubarb stems
- Enriched anthocyanin containing food in the future?
- Purple varieties of tomatoes are being bred to be anthocyanin-enriched (3 2020).
- It seems that the progress on this purple tomato is progressing so fast, USDA has approved it for human consumption, we might be finding it on our shelves in 2023
* There are concerns I read about this food so I cannot recommend eating this without speaking to someone with more knowledge than I have. For instance, this berry may unexpectedly lower blood sugar, and WebMD recommends caution.
Cooking Purple
These foods can be cooked in a variety of ways, and that means we can make them unhealthy by how we make our food. So here are some of the ways I cook purple food.
Japanese Sweet Potato (aka Hawaiian Sweet Potato)
For me, this yam is very tasty, slightly sweet, dense and creamy. I like to bake them in the oven, remove the beige skins and then slice them for serving on a plate with other colorful food. Then I tend to mash them on my plate. But you can also boil or steam them. Under a good dining table light the vibrancy of the colors can dance on the plate.
- Okinawa also has a reddish skinned yellow sweet potato that is also very tasty.
I also like to make a colorful hash with onions, garlic, yellow potatoes, purple yams, and orange sweet potatoes served with a poached egg and sliced scallions.
Red Cabbage (aka Blaukraut)
I absolutely love my sweet-sour Blaukraut recipe, and the variation to make it a candy-sweet dish is to follow the same recipe but end up with adding some ground cinnamon and ground cloves to the dish at the end.
Additionally, I love mixing red cabbage with the green in making my Rainbow Coleslaw or the Tex-Mex Coleslaw.
Blueberries
I love blueberries raw in yogurt, on cereal, in oatmeal, or just popped into my mouth while harvesting them. In fact, I have a post just on blueberries: A Blueberry Harvest; where I discuss freezing and dehydrating them.
These berries are sturdy enough to bake with them, such as in my Limey Blueberry Loaf.
Eggplants
I prefer the purple, skinny eggplants if I am going to eat eggplant. What I do is use them to make a vegan ”schnitzel”: Fried Breaded Egg Plant (veggie Schnitzel).
The only other way I like eggplants is as the Levantine appetizer dip Baba Ghanoush. This dish is made up of mashed, cooked eggplant, olive oil, lemon juice, various seasonings, and sometimes tahini. It may be served with onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, or other vegetables and pita bread.
The Stone Fruit: Plums
I did a post on cooking some red plums, which could work just as well with purple plums. One way I cooked them was as a plum crumble. A great, easy to make dessert that can use up a lot of plums. The plum trees around me seem to always have a large and heavy fruit, but that may just be our particular microclimate.
Another thing I made was plum jam. I have only one jar left and found it very good on peanut-butter and jam sandwiches as well as toast and scones.
Cranberries
I make two dishes with cranberries, and I am not limited to just during holiday dinners. First is I really do like bread-stuffing, and mix cranberries in with them: Cranberry Chestnut Stuffing.
The other is to make a cranberry ”chutney”: Orange Cranberry Sauce. Oh this was so sour-sweet it made my teeth ring with delight. I put it on turkey sandwiches, and tried it on all sorts of dishes…okay, I also would sneak in a direct tablespoon or two when no one was looking. Very tasty.
Carrots
These purple carrots can be used any way you regularly use carrots: raw, sautéed, or cooked with other items as part of a dish. You could even add it to the Ethiopian dish of cabbage-carrots-potatoes.
I have a post about carrots you might be interested in.
Purple Asparagus
Asparagus comes in green, white (a German favorite) and purple. Purple asparagus tends to be less herbaceous, and sweeter than green varieties. But what is so interesting is that when cooked, they change color from purple to light green. Additionally, the heat modifies the flavor to include a subtle nuttiness.
New Black Oxford Apples
Coming soon, Black Oxfords can be traced back to 1790s when the Maine seedlings were discovered. They have a dark, almost crimson skin and they fall into this category of purple-ish foods. They have a dense, very crispy and juicy flesh. Like Pink Ladys, they are a balanced sweet and tart apple.
Reports are that these apples can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 months.
New Purple Tomatoes
Sometime next year, 2023, a new purple tomato will be presented to limited markets in the USA. According to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a genetically-modified purple tomato has been cleared for submission to the FDA for formal approval that it is safe for sale and consumption. USDA APHIS writes it is unlikely to pose an increased plant pest risk compared to other cultivated tomatoes, and may therefore be safely grown and used in breeding in the United States.
Biochemist Cathie Martin, worked for 20+ years on this project and in 2008 published research detailing their efforts to have tomatoes with more anthocyanin, the “blueberry pigment”. We’ll have to see if it can overcome the stigma GMO foods have in this country, and elsewhere around the world.
Salutations
Well, that is about all the purple foods I know. Of course you can make jams and jellies or even pancake syrups out of all the fruit listed here, but that should be a given with most fruit. I have to admit for fruit with little seeds I like the jellies more than jams, as I hate picking those seeds out from between my teeth. Although strawberry seeds do not bother me much and I like chomping into the fruit.
The point is to use color to ”spice” up your plates for eating is as much a visual thing as it is aroma, taste, and so on. Additionally, there are differing nutritional profiles with each of the different foods so let color be one of the guides in mixing up ingredients.
Good luck, and happy eating.
—Patty
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