Unfamiliar Variety

Potatoes are white. Carrots are orange. Bananas are yellow. Asparagus are green. Tomatoes are red. Everybody knows this. And its not wrong. Its just woefully incomplete.

If you have never tasted purple, blue, yellow or red potatoes you are missing out on a tasty change of pace. (And this does not even consider yams and sweet potatoes.) You can cook and eat them the same way as the familiar white potatoes you are used to but the flavor and nutritional content can be noticeably different. Purple potatoes, for example, have about four times the antioxidants of white potatoes.

Red bananas are shorter, plumper and heartier than the average yellow banana. When ripe, it will have a thick, brick red peel and ivory-hued semi soft flesh. Its flavor is sweet and creamy with raspberry highlights. The Red banana has more beta carotene and Vitamin C than yellow banana varieties.

The orange carrot is a relative newcomer. Long before orange, yellow and purple carrots were cultivated. The purple variety contains twice the beta-carotene of the orange.

In Europe, especially Germany, white asparagus (called spargel) is very common. It is very similar nutritionally to the green asparagus we are familiar with but it has a milder flavor which many people prefer.

What is better than a fresh red tomato right off the vine? Maybe try a purple tomato. They have a similar taste with somewhat firmer flesh and higher levels of several antioxidants. And a bonus feature: a longer shelf life.

You can find many of these, and other, varieties of familiar fruits and vegetables in most supermarkets these days. Go ahead and give them a try. Worst case, your plate becomes a lot more colorful.