Fruits and vegetables have become an indispensible part of our lives. Farming and agriculture has always been the foundation of a country’s economy and therefore, fruits and vegetables hold a very important part and role in our life. The types and categories of fruits and vegetables are beyond what e can imagine, as there are various number of fruits and vegetables the names of which we are unaware of even today. Fruits are best known for the health and fitness benefits along with the delicious and tasty fruit pulp available. Vegetables are known for they very high fiber content, which is one of the foremost advisable instructions to lead and live a healthy life. Fruits and vegetables are cooked in large number of ways as there is no limit to any creation and experimentation of dishes with the amazing world of these agricultural produce. Yet, not many people know all the facts and features of fruits and vegetables. Some of them come from its birth of a long history, and there are many other vegetables and fruits which are given the name of people and places, and thus the list of facts is endless. Here is a list of the top 10 fascinating facts about fruits and vegetables which you probably have never come across before.
1. Most hated vegetable.
Brussels sprouts have been termed as the most hated vegetable by people all across the world. The tiny cabbage looking vegetable is definitely very high in nutrient and fiber content, yet their bitter taste is the most putting off for food lovers. The bitter taste of these sprouts can be removed by boiling them and immersing them in cold water. To make them taste better, the treated sprouts can be garnished and mixed in red vinegar or lemon.
2. Iron of Spinach
The fact that why most of the people and children in the world, including cartoon characters like Popeye look up to this vegetable is because of the high iron content Spinach contains. The story goes that spinach was chosen by Segar from a faulty study that displaced a decimal point while calculating the iron content of this vegetable. No one really knows whether this story is true or a myth, but one thing is sure that spinach is one of the healthiest leafy vegetables, most of the nutrients of which are lost while boiling and cooking.
3. Purple Carrots
There is no proper and fully fledged evidence on the origination of purple carrots, though some believe that they were first cultivated in modern day Afghanistan and then spread to parts of Europe and Middle East. Most of us have seen and are more acquainted with orange carrots and therefore the mystery and the story behind these strangely coloured carrots still remains vague in people’s minds.
4. Designer Melons
The watermelon first originated in South America, and spread to China and Europe between the 10th and the 13th centuries. Since this widespread distribution and demand of watermelons, farmers adopted a way of growing the watermelons in differently shaped glass boxes such as a square, pyramid and different sizes of cubes for easy storage in the refrigerator. Even today, the Densuke watermelons grown only on the Hokkaido Island has its average price set more than $250.
5. Cannibal Tomato
The Cannibal Tomato serves its name right as a particular tomato sauce is believed to be the best to go with human flesh to eat. Fiji’s Cannibal tomato is actually an eggplant, the vegetable which looks like a tomato. The natives of Fiji claim that this tomato helps in the preparation of a nice sauce which is the perfect complement to eating human flesh.
6. Grape Plasma
With the help of a microwave, one can turn a grape into the gas and then into the plasma state. Take a grape and slice it about 90 percent in between, just letting them stay connected by a small strip of skin. Insert the grape on a microwave rotating tray and keep it inside for about 10 seconds. After a few seconds, the moisture inside the little fruit emerges as a gas. The little charge between the two halves due to that tiny little strip will enable a steam to turn into a small electric light show, which is basically the plasma and can be contained in the grape for a longer time by placing a glass over the top of the grape.
7. Toxic Potatoes
Potatoes can also be toxic in nature as they produce large amounts of substances called glycoalkaloids, and the most toxic of them being Solanine. This toxic poison prevents people from eating the potatoes grown on the plants. Potatoes are very carefully cultivated for this reason to reduce the poison levels within them, and most of the toxic goes and buzzes off once the potatoes are cooked, yet we are daily exposed to little amounts of it every time we deal with a potato.
8. Banana extinction
Most banana lovers would be surprised to know about a particular banana which was extremely popular and widely distributed during the 1950’s but got wiped out. The bananas were called ‘Gros Michel’ and this type of bananas became extinct due to a fungus called the Panama Disease. The Cavendish bananas available today are very similar to the Gros Michel bananas, the only different being that Cavendish has a resistance to the Panama disease which had killed the superior quality Gros Michels.
9. Negative Calorie Celery
Negative calorie vegetables are those which are so low in calorie that the activity of just chewing and digesting them consumes more energy than what that particular vegetable actually gives us for our body. One such vegetable is Celery which is most popularly known for helping people lose weight and calories.
10. Johnny Appleseed
Johnny Appleseed was an actual man who roamed on the frontier of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, going about planting 100,000 square miles with apple orchards. Growing apples during the late 1700’s and early 1800’s was a big business, and therefore Johnny used his knack and grew apple trees such as hard cider and applejack and sold them to pioneers and travelers for a few countable cents. He had more money than anyone could have thought of that time.