Rainbow of Colors: Carrots

What could be more fun when it comes to vegetables?! I'll say nothing is much fun than experimenting and trying out new colors than your usual orange carrot. It is healthy and colorful at the same time.

Carrots, (daucus carota) that we see on the market is usually color orange, but it comes in different colors. And if you would ask what are the health benefits of consuming carrots, here's some:

* Carrots are rich in beta-carotene, anti-oxidants, minerals and fibers. So if you want to benefit from all these, consider adding carrots to your dish. It would give you a keen eyesight too.

* Adding carrots to your diet can help diseases at bay, such as asthma, anemia, congestion, constipation, skin problems, cholesterol and it even reduce cancer risk.

* Not only the taproot, carrot leaves is high in protein and vitamin K and it can be eaten too.

So, how do you like your carrot? Orange, yellow, white, purple, red or black?

Yellow carrots.

The gift of the yellow carrot is its support for helping us have a good eyesight as it has xanthophylls which is a pigment similar to beta-carotene.

I had never tasted any dish with yellow carrots, but as I search online, I had stumbled into a blog of someone having a carrot soup made of yellow carrots. And what did the post says? Delicious! And that the carrot is juicy too.

Tender and sweet like the yellow carrot, this black carrots can be good choice if you enjoy making your own vegetable juice.

Just like the purple carrot, this black ones has anthocyanins, and both anti fungicidal bacterial properties. And imagine cooking a rice using the black juice from it, serves as a natural food coloring agent too.

This variety tend to be a weather sensitive to grow as people in the West seems to have a problematic first year of carrot growing with a flowerless plant and spindly roots.

The brighter the color orange, the higher the beta-carotene of these orange carrots. And this is because of the yellow-orange pigment called the carotene.

This is the carrot we all grow up with seeing on stores vegetable section.

Purple carrots.

I heard that the darker the fruit or the leafy vegetables, the richer it is on antioxidants. And it goes with this purple carrot too.

The anthocyanins pigment that is found in this purple carrot is a powerful antioxidant. And like the orange variety we usually purchase on the store, the beta-carotene this purple carrot possess is double the amount of the other varieties of carrots.

Interesting fact: The purple carrot already exist in Asia and in the Eastern part of Mediterranean before the oranged colored carrot.

This white carrots makes me think these are Daikon radishes, really. And I am even laughing at myself searching if in any case that the white carrot are somehow the Daikon radish too. ( I know, silly me.)

Anyway, this white carrot is native to Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. It lacks in pigment but it doesn't mean that it is lesser that the other carrots as it has phytochemicals which possessed health promoting elements.

Red carrots.

The color of Valentine's Day, these red carrots got their color from lycopene. And if you are aiming for a carrot that would shield you from cancer cells and would help you get a healthy heart, consider a go with this variety.

These red carrots is native to China and India.