Vegetables

Fun Facts About Vegetables

• Europeans in the 16th–18th centuries considered tomatoes "poison apples" because their acidity leached lead from the pewter plates used by the wealthy. This caused illness and death.
• Early carrots were mostly purple, white or yellow before farmers in the Netherlands in the 17th century developed the modern orange variety through selective breeding.
• Broccoli was effectively man-made. It was bred from wild cabbage by ancient farmers in the Mediterranean over 2,000 years ago.
• Corn (maize) technically belongs to the grass family, alongside wheat, rice, oats, and sugarcane.
• Some varieties of peppers contain signficantly more vitamin C per serving than citrus. One cup of chopped red bell pepper offers roughly 190 mg of vitamin C, which is nearly three times the amount found in a typical orange.
• Eggplants are berries because they develop from a single flower with one ovary and contain seeds. That makes them closely related to tomatoes, potatoes and peppers.
• Onions make you cry because of a chemical reaction. Cutting or slicing onions releases a volatile sulfur gas that wafts upward and interacts with eye moisture to produce a mild acid that causes burning and tearing.
• Asparagus is extremely fast growing. Under ideal conditions, asparagus can shoot up 10 inches or more in a single day. While asparagus can grow even taller, they are typically harvested daily to prevent the spears from becoming too tall and woody.