We hope to see all our friends and neighbors at our next delicious
Pathfinder Produce market tomorrow afternoon, August 20, from 1 to 5 p.m. Our market staff will be introducing some new
bulk items—raisins, walnuts, and sunflower seeds—and we offer such a great
variety of your fresh fruit and vegetable favorites.
Enjoy this guest column by Martha Spiegel, who has explored and
enjoyed new produce through a Community Supported Agriculture share this summer.
***
This year my husband and I decided to invest
in a membership in a Community Supported Agriculture share. The farm that we
are members of delivers boxes (shares) of fresh-picked produce every week to
several locations, and one is near our home. Our boxes are full of delicious
items like lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, fresh herbs, etc., and
sometimes we get some fun surprises. One week we got popcorn-on-the-cob! A couple of weeks ago our box contained an
assortment of carrots in colors I had never seen before. There were the more
common orange, as well as yellow, light purple and dark purple varieties.
In doing a bit of research, I came across the
website for The Carrot
Museum (who knew?). Apparently, carrots were not always orange—purple was
the original color! They likely originated in Afghanistan and Turkey before the
tenth century. A later mutation resulted in yellow carrots, and Dutch
growers—finding yellow varieties to be bitter—developed another mutation and
the orange carrot arrived on the scene. (Tales that the orange carrot was bred
to honor William of
Orange are most likely historical fiction.)
The different colors have some different health
rewards. Last week Lori spoke about carrots being good for healthy eyes. In
addition, yellow carrots contain xanthophylls and lutene, which may help reduce
the risk of astherosclerosis
(hardening of the arteries). Purple carrots have more beta carotene than the
orange carrots, and also contain anthocyanins which give them their purple
color and are powerful antioxidants. Red carrots contain lycopene, which may
reduce risk of macular generation and also prevent heart disease and prostate
cancer. White carrots contain phytochemicals which may reduce the risk of
cancer and stoke, and may be an alternative for people with a carotene allergy.
While there are many ways to cook carrots, we
chose just to peel and eat them raw. (Note: as with most purple vegetables, the
carrots will lose their color when cooked.) This led to the wonderful discovery
that the outside color doesn’t always match the inside color. The yellow carrot
was yellow all the way through, but the dark purple ones had a white ring
inside, and the light purple ones had yellowish rings which produced a target
pattern when sliced into coins. All in all, it made for a very colorful dish of
carrot sticks! I will report that we didn’t taste much difference with the variation
in color, but they were all delicious!
A listing of many Community Supported
Agriculture farms can be found at www.localharvest.org
, and a share is another way to get fresh fruits and vegetables to supplement
what you can find at Pathfinder Produce. We hope to see you at the market, open
from 1-5 p.m. every Thursday!
Until next time, enjoy all the colorful
produce you can!
Martha
