The purple carrots get their color from anthocyanins, which also provide color to red potatoes, apples, and cranberries. Anthocyanins are potent antioxidants.
The red carrots get their color from lycopene and beta carotene. Lycopene is thought to prevent prostate cancer and other cancers.
Americans get roughly 85 percent of dietary lycopene from tomatoes, and scientists at ARS are working constantly to increase tomatoes' phytonutrient content.
From Lab to Market
The road from the laboratory to the marketplace is long. Developing new varieties is not always a straightforward process and can take years. HZPC has many agricultural specialists working to develop new varieties, but it also supports about 120 hobbyists in the Netherlands who spend their spare time in their backyards developing potato varieties.
"They bring the plants to us, and we evaluate them," Northcott said. "It's kind of like hitting the lottery. If you're lucky and come up with a variety with some tremendous merit, you might make some money." A hobbyist developed the low-carb potato.
Orange cauliflower, which contains approximately 25 times more vitamin A than white cauliflower, started life as a mutant in a field in Canada. Researchers started working to develop it in 1970, and it's just now making its way to the marketplace.
Once seed companies have been persuaded to sell the seeds, and farmers convinced to grow them, the veggies have one last hurdle: the consumer. Nutrient-dense veggies don't always look like what we're used to.
Sherry Tanumihardjo, a nutritionist at the University of Wisconsin, has been working with seed companies and farmers and visiting farm markets to promote the colorful carrots developed at the university.
"I think the market is going to be great, especially with the red carrots," Tanumihardjo said. "The color is beautiful, and they're just as easy to work with as traditional orange carrots. The purple carrots will probably require a little more work in terms of public outreach. The purple color is water soluble, so it turns your hands purple," she said. "But it has a whole other range of compounds that are important."
In addition to farmer's markets, the orange cauliflower is showing up in chichi restaurants and on the crudités platters of caterers enamored with the unusual colors.
And perhaps someday that fast food french fry you're chomping will be protecting you from blindness while it adds to your waistline.
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