PORPHYRIA LOVERS:

Introducing the latest superfood... Purple asparagus (Daily Mail, 26th April 2007)

A purple asparagus, so sweet it can be eaten raw, has gone on sale in British supermarkets for the first time. [...]

Purple aspa­ragus has much smaller quantities of lignin, the fibrous ­material that makes the green version stringy.

This is also the reason why it can be eaten raw, making it suitable for salads, for instance.

Purple foods are popular with health-conscious consumers because the colour indicates a high level of supposedly health-enhancing anti­oxidants.

Other purple superfoods include tomatoes, being perfected by researchers at Oregon State University, and Purple Haze carrots, which remain orange on the inside.

Growers also have high hopes for purple sprouting broccoli, which has be­come increasingly popular in recent years.

Pacific Purple Aspara­gus, to give it its full name, has high concentrations of the antioxidant called anthocyanin.

Now all of us can be King George.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 26, 2007 7:13 AM