Cooking with the Color Purple -- Recipes with Purple Foods

Purple Food Sources:

eggplant, plums, prunes, raisins, grapes, Purple figs, Purple grapes, Plums, Raisins, Purple asparagus, Purple cabbage, Purple carrots, Eggplant, Purple Belgian endive, Purple peppers,
Potatoes (purple fleshed)

To find out more about these foods use the Food Encyclopedia shown to the right.

Health Benefits

Purple fruits and vegetables contain varying amounts of health-promoting phytochemicals such as anthocyanins and phenolics, currently being studied for their antioxidant and anti-aging benefits.

Purple are rich in the antioxidant monoterpenes that protect tissues from free radical damage, aubergines are member of the solanacae family, which includes peppers and tomatoes. In animal studies, rabbits fed aubergine were protected against the formation of plaque, even when fed a high cholesterol diet. What happens is that the active ingredients in the aubergine bind with cholesterol from the diet in the intestinal tract, thereby preventing it from entering the bloodstream. Black aduki beans are the quickest of all the beans to cook, the lowest in calories, and the highest in nutritional content. Aduki beans help detoxify the body - and like all beans, are a good source of folic acid, which is involved in making red blood cells. They also provide magnesium and copper, both of which the body needs to utilise vitamin C and calcium. Beans also provide zinc, which plays a key role in cell division and repair. There's a good reason for taking purple grapes to people recovering in hospital - they have long been associated with convalescence and detoxification and can help relieve a wide range of ailments from teen skin disorders to urinary infections. They have a cleansing effect on all the body's systems and in test-tube studies have been shown to have both antiviral and antibacterial properties.