Tag Archives: Vegetable

Any part of a plant that is edible except the fruit. Roots, leaves, seed pods, and stems are all considered vegetables.

🟡Steamed Artichokes. Freshly prepared with 66% UPF.

The artichoke may be the most daunting vegetable to challenge human culinary creativity. Thorny on the outside. Tough and fibrous on the inside. Except of course for the tip of each leaf and that artichoke heart which is savory, delicate, but inedible unless the choke is removed. The artichokes pictured above are French from a farmers market just outside of Paris. But they look just like the artichokes I used to eat growing up in California.

My preferred preparation is to steam artichokes and serve them cold or room temperature with a dressing part whole milk yogurt and part commercial mayonnaise.

But 66% calories UPF! How is that possible?  How can such a simple preparation be so significantly ultra-processed? The answer is because it’s customary to count UPF by weight when describing supermarket shelf space but to count UPF by calories when describing consumption.

That means we need to check both ingredients and calories. The artichokes themselves are minimally processed of course. My plain yogurt is processed. Milk becomes yogurt through fermentation, a traditional processing method that preserves whole milk by means of lactic acid.

The culprit is the commercial mayonnaise. I make the dressing 2 parts yogurt to one part mayonnaise. By weight, the mayonnaise constitutes only 12% UPF of the weigh of the sauce. By calories, the numbers look a lot different however. The ingredients for a good off the shelf mayo starts with oil, usually soybean or canola, eggs, vinegar, salt, sometimes sugar, preservatives, flavors. It’s the presence of preservatives and flavors that determine degree of processing but it’s the oil that determines the calorie contribution. So it’s the mayo that is responsible for that scary percentage –  66% UPF. And that’s the reason my steamed artichokes get a yellow 🟡 dot.

Do I know how to make my own mayonnaise? Yes I do. Am I going to stop using off the shelf mayo because it has added flavors and preservatives. No way.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

Here’s my take on flavor additives and preservatives.

• Preservatives. I don’t have a problem with their use. Some are better than others, but the way I see things, a preservative is better than food poisoning.

• Flavors. I do have a problem with added flavors because I want flavor to come from the food on the plate. It also doesn’t matter to me if flavor is laboratory engineered or extracted from natural ingredients. I avoid both. Flavor should come from quality ingredients. Like robust freshly harvested artichokes. Or naturally fermented plain yogurt. But I don’t get concerned when the manufacturer adds a flavor to the mayo unless I am willing to make time to do the grunt work myself.

🟡Grilled Chicken, Red Peppers, Pinto Beans, Pasta. Freshly prepared with 29% UPF

Food is complex. Nutrition is wicked hard. Cutting through all those layers is no small feat, but I’m going to give it my best shot.

Americans are used to starting with nutrients. So my first suggestion is to forget nutrients for a moment and focus on the food. Those gorgeous red peppers. The grilled chicken strips. That occasional pinto bean that is peeking out here and there. Or the pasta. The Italians call the pasta “elicodale” which translates into English as spiral shaped and as you can see those deep ridges create a sort of spiral pattern.

The grilled chicken dish is freshly prepared with traditional ingredients. But as noted above, nearly a third of the calories come from ingredients which are classified as ultra-processed – NOVA Group 4 UPF. These ingredients are the grilled chicken, the vegetable broth, and the tomato basil sauce.

These three items are industrially formulated convenience products and all were developed relatively recently. Home cooks like me know that making vegetable broth or red sauce from scratch takes time. And cutting up and grilling chicken breast strips is messy. Scratch cooking tastes better, but life intercedes so I’m okay using industrially formulated products as long as they are made with simple intact ingredients and do not contain flavors, colors, texture modifiers, or acellular nutrients.

The 29% calories UPF noted above is the sum of the calories from the vegetable broth, grilled chicken, and tomato basil sauce. The yellow 🟡 dot means I used ultraprocessed products but each of the products I used are acceptable. To me.

Focusing on food is easy. For those not used to home cooking, it may take some practice but it’s a skill anyone can develop. It just takes practice.

Focusing on nutrients is not easy.  The Nutrition Facts Label can be helpful for assessing the three nutrients that health professionals recommend limiting. As you’ll note from the label above, the sodium percentage stands out from the other Daily Value percentages. Palatability is as important to me as health when I cook at home so I salt to taste. Although I use salt in moderation, the food police will still bang on my head for using too much salt. Compared to the high sodium valued seen in restaurant meals or Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) however, my moderate use looks a lot better.

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

American who pay attention to labels are used to putting nutrients first because that’s the message labels have been reinforcing for the last 50 years. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has been nutrient focused for 5 decades! It wasn’t until December 2024 that a “meaningful amount” of food became a component for using the word “healthy” on food product labels. It’s a positive step however and I applaud the FDA for finally acknowledging that food does count.

🟢Lamb Shanks. Freshly prepared with 0% UPF

My traditional Christmas meal for the last couple of years has been lamb shanks. I use my tagine and cook the shanks in a slow oven with aromatics, tomato, and dry vermouth.

Before the braising process starts, the shanks get a 20 minute oven roasting as the picture above illustrates. They look a lot different of course after braising, but a picture of that initial roasting makes it easier to see the shanks themselves as well as the fat content.

The shanks come out so tender you can cut them with a fork. And they taste so good most folks want a whole one on the plate. As for me, a half a shank will do. The label above reflects the facts for approximately 1/2 a lamb shank.

The ingredient list is simple and short – lamb, tomato, dry vermouth, onion, fennel, carrot, olive oil, parsley, salt. That means a green 🟢 for NOVA compliance. But as happens with so many of my traditional recipes, lamb shanks get a thumbs down for “healthy” due to the saturated fat from the meat.

As my zealous colleagues love to point out, avoiding ultraprocessed food products is not good guidance for a healthy dietary pattern. And lamb shanks are a good example of what my colleagues are pointing out. Even though lamb shanks have less visible fat than lamb chops, there’s enough to exceed recommended values. Those beautiful lamb shanks aren’t high in saturated fat but they don’t qualify as lean either. Even a moderate amount of saturated fat is more than the evidence based percentage DV (Daily Value) allows.

Am I concerned about a moderate amount of saturated fat? No, not really. As I used to tell my clients when I worked in counseling, you can eat pretty much what you want to as long as you’re willing to manage frequency and portion size. So if fat isn’t the uncomfortable truth, what is?

VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

My uncomfortable truth is sustainability. Beef and lamb have environmental issues, even when the animals are pasture raised and grassfed. And that issue concerns me.

Industrial livestock production can and does cause significant environmental damage. Eating less meat and more plants is better for the environment. So what’s an omnivore like me to do? I’ve wrestled with that question for a long time and here’s what I’ve come up.

I’m fussy about sourcing and avoid industrial production when ever I can.

I also take my own good advice – smaller portions less often. The lamb shanks are a once a year celebration meal. And I know that what’s important about celebration meals is sitting back and enjoying friends and family.

I do have another approach to sustainability but I’m going to save that one for another post.

🟢Mayocoba Beans. Freshly prepared with 4% UPF



Is it just me or am I the only one who loves beans because they can taste good?

Pictured above  are some beautiful Mayocoba beans I made for a holliday dinner last year as an accompaniment for roasted duck. Mayocoba beans are savory enough to stand on their own yet earthy enough to share the plate with a robust partner. Like roast duck.

The Mayocoba bean is a native of Peru. Mayocobas grow many places now including California which is where I source from. My taste for savory beans developed early on because I grew up eating Mexican street food and New England baked beans on a regular basis. We probably go through about 20 pounds a year per person. The average American on the other hand eats closer to 6 pounds.

Beans do need tender loving care to achieve tastiness. Heirloom beans, some culinary skill, an honest olive oil, the right amount of salt, flavorful aromatics like onion, carrot, fennel, and a handful of parsley.

Why heirloom beans? Because these varieties tend to have more nuanced flavor profiles than commodity crops.

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

 Beans have officially displaced kale as the new nutrition obsession as per a headline that crossed my feed recently. My dietitian colleagues, the advisory committee for DGA2025, a growing number of Influencers, and the combined marketing muscle of American farmers who grow them – everyone seems to agree that a healthy dietary pattern includes eating a lot more beans.

If those Mayocoba beans pictured above were a product however I couldn’t market them as healthy because I used too much salt. At the same time, the amount I used meets the FDA Phase II sodium goal for restaurants.

In my view, we’re not going to be able to persuade Americans to rat more beans if we ignore palatability.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to make a respectable place for moderation within the healthy model?

 

 

🟢Roasted Cauliflower. Freshly prepared with 0% UPF

The final meeting of our Dietary Guidelines 2025 Advisory Committee meeting was held this past week. The committee members have again concluded that me and my fellow Americans don’t follow the guidelines and we eat poorly. Not much change since the first set of guidelines was published back in 1980.

And that brings me to cauliflower.

October is a great month for eating more cauliflower. It’s peak season for fall vegetables here in the Hudson Valley and that cauliflower pictured above came from a local farm stand. Local, seasonal cauliflower gets to my farm stand a lot faster than commodity cauliflower grown in California or Texas and I can taste the difference. Cauliflower imports from the west coast are welcome during winter and early spring but it’s October so I always opt for local.

By weight and by calories, roasted cauliflower is made with mostly minimally processed ingredients and therefore deserves a NOVA mostly minimally processed green dot 🟢.

Even better, if my roasted cauliflower were a product I could probably use the word “healthy” on the label. I’m not stingy with olive oil and I salt to taste because I want my vegetables to be irresistibly delicious, so I was pleasantly surprised how good the stats looked for sodium and saturated fat. Nutrition stats are pegged to specific FDA reference amounts (85g for vegetables). That’s the serving size gram amounts you’ll see for example on frozen cauliflower in the freezer case. My serving is about twice a big as the reference amount because I love the taste of my roasted cauliflower. But you better believe that I too would use the smaller serving amount if I were marketing a product and could make a “healthy” nutrient content claim.

Now back to eating more plants. Eating more roasted cauliflower is a delicious way to eat more plants / vegetables. And the guidelines are clear that Americans don’t eat enough vegetables. It’s October and cauliflower is in season so joyfully and with great pleasure, I’m only too happy to comply.

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

As per our current dietary guidelines, a healthy eating pattern is based on nutrient-dense plant-based foods. I applaud the plant-based part of the recommendation, but I do have concerns about the nutrient-dense component. Salting to taste means using just enough salt to highlight the flavors of the food, but never so much that salt overpowers the food. Sometime when I run the stats, sodium falls below the “healthy” threshold and sometimes it doesn’t.

Most of my fellow Americans don’t cook on a regular basis anyway. They depend on the food industry. In many ways, the guidelines are as much about setting limits on the food industry as they are about providing individual Americans with the nutrition facts to make informed decisions.

Here’s the dilemma. The food industry wants to sell us what we enjoy eating which as it stand right now is food products that are high in fat, sugar, salt. The dietary guidelines recommend restricting our choices to food products that are low fat, sugar, salt to reduce the risk of chronic disease development. Something gets lost in the battle between high versus low however. And that something is moderation. And that loss concern me.

🟡Actual Veggies Burger. Quickly assembled with 87% UPF


Veggie burgers were born during the 1980s. The rational was simple – concentrate or extract the protein component of a plant instead of using muscle meat. Next enhance using texture modifiers, colors, flavors to form a flattened, rounded patty that resembled a ground beef paddy. These original veggie burgers were clearly ultra-processed. 

An alternative method was to use an intact food like black beans or mushrooms. Since I am partial to the intact food approach, I have always favored for black bean version. So when I found a new black bean burger “chef crafted with caramelized onion”, I decided to give Actual Veggies Black Bean Burger a try.

Like every other veggie burger in the freezer unit of an American supermarket, Actual Veggies meet the criteria for an UPF – an industrially formulated mass produced food product with considerably more than 5 ingredients.

There are good reasons to be cautious with UPF. A decade of research, most of which has been done outside the US, has established significant correlation between percentage of ultra processed food products in the dietary pattern and negative health outcomes. On the other hand, avoiding UPF means systematically avoiding convenience products and about 70% of the food currently sold in our supermarkets.

Not an easy decision especially if you’re a working mom or dad and depend on convenience to feed the family. Even tough for folks like me who prefer the taste of freshly prepared but welcome a break from the daily grind of scratch cooking. So the question then becomes, where do we draw the line between acceptable convenience and frivolous indulgence.

The best place to start thinking about making a decision is to start with an ingredient list.

The Actual Veggies burger list reads as follows: Black Bean, Carrot, Parsnip, Oat, Yellow Onion, Red Onion, Red Pepper, Chickpea Flour, Lemon, Spice Blend (Ovata Seed, Kosher Salt, Garlic Powder, Paprika, Chili Powder, Cumin, Black Pepper).

There are no added colors, no added artificial or natural flavors, and no texture modifying agents like xanthan gum or lecithin or methylcellulose. On visual inspection, I can see the black beans are intact and I can see small flecks of red pepper. The rest of those vegetables however have lost their individuality and become part of the puréed mass that holds the burger together.

I do see one “unfamiliar” ingredients I don’t keep in my kitchen cabinet – ovata seed. In fact I’d never heard of ovata seed until I read the ingredient list. Here’s what came back from a Google search. Plantago ovata is a common medicinal plant widely cultivated in tropical regions of the world. The outer seed coat of P. ovata, obtained by cleaning the seeds, contains soluble and insoluble fibre in a ratio of 7:3, making products containing P. ovata husk an ideal source of health-beneficial fibre.

Time savings are significant – I didn’t have to make my own black bean burger or bake my own brioche bun or mix up a batch of home made mayonnaise.

There’s a taste test to follow of course, but in terms of degree of processing, Actual Veggies burger gets a yellow dot. 🟡

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

Always important to remember that people eat food not ingredients. That means the burger needs to be all dressed up before I take my first bite or run the numbers. Besides the Actual Veggies, I used an artisan brioche bun from a local Northeast regional baker, some olive oil for frying. I also added a couple slices of tomato, some mayo, and lettuce.

I’m happy to report that my Actual Veggies burger passed my taste test.

The calories clocked in around 400 / 450. Nutrient analysis reflects 11 grams protein (plant based protein for the sustainable crowd), 8 grams dietary fiber, and a serving of vegetables (Actual Veggies, lettuce, tomato).

The sodium does look high and there’s not enough potassium to balance the potassium:sodium ratio. The sodium comes from ultra-processed foods (my brioche bun, the mayo, the Actual Veggie). But honestly, if I had done it all from scratch, the sodium would have roughly comparable.

The CDRR for sodium is 2300mg per day independent of age, gender, or lifestyle. The Advisory Committee DGA2025 meeting #6 this year made a sobering assessment regarding sodium reduction in US dietary patterns. Sodium exceeds 2300mg even when criteria are applied to identify lower nutrient density foods. My reading of that assessment is Americans are going to have to adjust to a No Added Salt dietary pattern to comply with the CDRR. And I’m not sure setting such an austere goal is helpful. Or even attainable without enlisting the food police.

🔴Cute. Clean. Tasty. Ready to eat 100% UPF

Consider the corn chips pictured above. No doubt about it, they’re tasty. Even more remarkable, the taste of whole corn is the predominant flavor. That’s the taste of my favorite corn tortillas which are made using a tradition processing method for corn – Nixtamalization. That’s when dried kernels of mature corn are cooked and steeped in an alkaline solution, usually water and calcium hydroxide. The processing makes it easier to grind the corn kernels and results in a characteristic taste. The label makes no mention of nixtamalization, but I do recognize a hint of that familiar flavor.

The ingredient list is simple and reads: organic whole ground corn, organic sunflower and/or organic safflower oil, sea salt, lime oil.

Although the FDA has yet to publish a final rule for using the word “healthy” on food product labels, it’s likely the product would be able to use the word because these corn chips meet the qualifications for another FDA nutrient guideline. As a general guide – 5% DV or less per serving is considered low for the three nutrients of concern – sodium, saturated fat, added sugars. And these corn chips check all three of those boxes.

The product also offers multiple certifications for added reassurance. Late July is a manufacturer with an impressive marketing approach. The chips are certified USDA organic, nonGMO, gluten-free, vegan, kosher, and whole grain. The product is designed to honor all lifestyles and make everybody feel comfortable. It’s a brilliant approach. If everyone at the party can feel comfortable with the same snack food despite allergies or lifestyle preferences, you only need to buy one brand of tortilla chip.

THE VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW

Personally I have a couple of problems labeling chips of any kind “healthy” based solely on a nutrient profile.

First, I like to scrutinize a product by looking through the NOVA lens. Potato chips and tortilla chips both fall into the NOVA Group 4 bucket. Most tortilla chips are made using an extruder. Extrusion is a process that uses heat and pressure to force food which has been reduced to a slurry or semi-solid state through a specifically designed opening to achieve a desired shape. These chips have a more delicate texture. Perhaps they were rolled into very thin sheets then precut into the familiar triangle shape? They also have a more nuanced taste – as noted above a whisper of niximalized whole corn. Still UPF but suggestive of a kinder gently degree of processing. The ingredient list for the product pictured above contains no “cosmetic” additives. Those are the additives that add flavor, color, sweetness, smoothness thus enhancing taste, appearance, or texture. As a result, the label is remarkably clean.

Second there’s a compositional issue. Folks eat food not nutrients.  Chips are served with dips. What dip will end up on the chip? Then there’s the issue of what foods are being displaced because the eater grazed on chips and dips before sitting down to a plate of food.

What makes more sense to my simplistic mind would be to say these tortilla chips are cute, clean, and very, very tasty. But yes, they are ultra-processed, so don’t spoil your dinner by eating too many, especially if what follows is a freshly prepared meals made with minimally processed ingredients like vegetables and meat or fish.

Working my way through the CSA.

leek, potatoes, rutabaga, nutmeg

leek, potatoes, rutabaga, nutmeg

Picked up my last load from the CSA the day before Thanksgiving and am still working my way through. Over the six months of the season I got 270 pounds of vegetables. In other words, I picked up and brought home 10 to 20 pounds per week. Every week for 26 weeks. My goal was to eat or distribute everything and on that count I’ve done an outstanding job. So far. But I’m not finished yet.

Pictured above are some potatoes and a lovely bunch of leeks for my soup. Up in one corner is a rutabaga which I’m going to use with the potatoes and in the other corner a nutmeg which I will grate as the soup finishes cooking. An appreciation goes to James Beard for the suggestion of using nutmeg in leek and potato soup. I’m pretty creative in the kitchen, but I never would have thought of that one on my own.

I love leeks but they are sometimes a pain in the neck because they can be full of sand. These leeks were comparatively sand free so in no time I have them washed and sliced them.

Now I put a couple of tablespoons olive oil in the 4 liter soup pot, toss in the leeks, and let them braise. As the leeks soften and get aromatic, I scrub and cut up the potatoes leaving the skin on for extra fiber and nutrients. The rutabaga got added because I don’t know what else to do with it. It’s the same color as the potatoes and hopefully it will all just blend right in.

I add a liter of low sodium stock, chuck in the potatoes and the rutabaga, and let it all come to a boil. Then turn the heat down and gently simmer until the potatoes are soft.

My preference is low sodium stock not because I don’t want salt but because I want to add the salt to my taste. Also the presalted stocks do not taste as clean to my palate as the low sodium ones.

When the potatoes are soft enough to mash, I pull out the food mill. A wonderful kitchen devise that manually pulverized vegetables into chunks or purée pieces. The food mill is much gentler than the food processor. What is really cool about using the food mill is that the potatoes and leeks go in one end and out the other end comes soup. Back into the pot. Adjust the seasonings. Grate in some nutmeg. I used half the piece. Add more water or stock if the consistency is too thick. And as a final touch, I stir in a good sized piece of butter.

And there you have it, a nourishing late fall soup.

Best of all my leeks and the rutabaga are gone. And all I have left is 7 pounds of potatoes in my pantry. Hummmmmm …

Just don’t do anything that will poison us!

image

Those were Jeff’s words of encouragement when I told him I wanted to make a sauerkraut.

Why you may be asking did I want to make sauerkraut? Here’s why. My CSA had put a gigantic humongous incredibly heavy 5 1/2 pound cabbage in my box and, along with other 10 pounds of assorted vegetables, I had one week before the next delivery to figure out what to do with the lavish abundance. Besides I never made a sauerkraut before.

Now I am not a complete novice. I did ferment some cucumbers once. Granted it was way before I met Jeff, but I didn’t poison my self that time. And that was really before I had a clue what I was doing.

Just for the record, those fermented cucumbers were the best pickles I have ever eaten.

I still don’t really know what I’m doing now, but I’m a lot more knowledgeable today and even more important I know where to start looking. So with Jeff’s words of encouragement ringing in my ears, I began my search.

For do it yourself sauerkraut, the Internet really excels. So I did my due diligence reading up on the matter and determined that fermentation is one of the older forms of preservation practiced by us humans. As it is technically called, lacto-fermentation has been practiced for centuries as a method for preserving excess vegetable at the end of the growing season.

During the fermentation process, the vegetables are cut or shredded, and salt is added. The salt draws out the vegetable liquid and the vegetables ferment in their juices.

State Extension Services seem to have the more detailed technical information like percentage of salt solution and temperature ranges most favorable to promote the growth of the good guys i.e. lactic acid and discourage entry of the bad guys i.e. spoilage or food poisoning microorganisms otherwise know as the stuff that makes you sick.

I also checked a FaceBook group for people who love to ferment all kinds of weird stuff. I got a lot of moral support and realized there were lots of people out there who ferment cabbage into sauerkraut and have lived to talk about it.

I need to Follow directions. Need to be careful. It’s times like this I am glad I took microbiology.

Okay, if primitive illiterate humans can ferment a cabbage and live to tell about it, a well educated, intelligent, twenty-first century female should certainly be able to rise to the occasion.

So I gathered my references, pulled out my biggest bread bowl, washed and sliced my caggage, measured out my salt solution, and set it all to ferment at the appropriate temperature. And I checked it every day.

The fermentation process appears to be variable. As little as three days and as long as three months. Depends on which source you read and which person you talk to. However on day ten, here in New York we got hit with a cold spell so I decided it was time to close down the cottage industry. I packed the sauerkraut into to liter glass containers and moved them to the frig. We had pork chops on Sunday, so I served some kraut alongside with sweet potatoes.

Jeff’s responce “This tastes pretty good … It sure tastes like sauerkraut … “.

Next step is to build up enough courage to take a taste straight up. I tagged it safe. Now I need to follow through and taste it without heating the kraut up first.

Surprise! Look what I found in my CSA box last week.

The Watermelon radish, also known as Rooseheart or Red Meat, is an heirloom Chinese Daikon radish.


Watermelon radish, also known as Rooseheart or Red Meat, is an heirloom Chinese Daikon radish.

When I pulled these two beauties out of the box last week, I was clueless. And since I am pretty knowledgeable about foods, clueless doesn’t happen to me very often.

The situation called for immediate investigation. One root got washed and cut in half. I was blown away by that gorgeous vibrant fuchsia color. Never would I have guessed that this mundane root could reveal such a photogenic interior!

Next question is how does it taste? So the root got peeled. What a pleasant surprise. A mild crisp slightly sharp taste reminiscent of turnips.

Only then did it occur to me to figure out the name of what I just ate and that was when I started to learn about the watermelon radish. It’s a member of the Brassica (mustard) family along with arugula, broccoli and turnips according to the CSA website. An edible globular root attached to thin stems and wavy green leaves. The exterior is creamy white with pale green shoulders, a sign of the chlorophyll it received from exposure to the sun. Watermelon radish flesh is white closest to the exterior and becomes bright, circular striations of pink and magenta toward the center. Hence, the watermelon reference.

So what to do with this gorgeous root? The one reference provided by the CSA was a recipe from Whole Foods for cooked radishes. No way was I going to cook the root. Heat would just mute that crisp flavor and potentially destroy the vibrant color.

As I was musing how I would plate and present the root, I ended up eating quite a few pieces. One thing for sure. It’s a tasty root.

A Google search revealed that watermelon radishes have been available in the US for at least a couple of years and seem to be more often associated with the west coast as opposed to the east coast. I did find one outlier CSA in Idaho however proudly touting the beauty and virtues of watermelon radishes. Most recipes I found reflected my original take that the root is better presented raw in a salad than cooked as a side dish. It’s always nice to see one’s own culinary judgment supported by others.

That first root, or I should say what was left of it, went on top of a green salad. Color contrast was striking. Roots are good keepers, so I won’t use the other root until I’ve more time to think about presentation and pairings. I think combining the root with avocado might be a good way to go.

On the Healthy versus Healthy infograph, watermelon radishes are getting a phytonutrients tag. A root with that much pigment that is also a member of the brassica family has phytonutrition even if the research nutritionists have not given the pigment a name or measured the amount. Check the tag line for my other ratings.