Should You Eat More Purple Produce?

Purple has long been regarded as the color of royalty. It’s rich and prodigious.

This translates to the food world, with blueberries and acai being labeled as “superfoods” and an increasing amount of plants being bioengineered to have this special hue.

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I can’t deny that purple is an amazingly beautiful color, but does its reputation hold true when it comes to our health? Let’s explore.

Fruits and vegetables get their colors from different phytochemicals. These compounds, made within the plant, also give them their taste and smell.

Anthocyanins are phytochemicals that give off a deep red, purple, or blue hue, and you’ll find these in many types of produce, including blueberries, cranberries, red cabbage, and plums. They also color many types of flowers.

Other types of phytochemicals can also give produce rich colorful hues. Beets get their color from betalains. Red grapes are colored by anthocyanins, but also contain resveratrol, a phytochemical with its own distinctive advantages

Whoa – that was a lot of big words. The takeaway is this: plants make their own special chemicals that allow them to have unique colors and flavors.

Farmers can also use selective breeding to make certain foods colorful. You may have seen different colored carrots or cauliflower in grocery stores. While the standard commercially available cultivars don’t grow this way, special cultivars can provide additional phytochemical benefits.

When we eat a variety of colorful plants, all of these