Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Purple carrot juice

Carrots used to be purple (read more about them here) and in the past bunch of years there has been a mini-trend to grow purple carrots again. The pigments that make the carrots' skin purple (the flesh is still orange) are a group of phytochemicals called anthocyanins. These self-same compounds are what make most berries deep red to purple, and are also (potentially) responsible for these fruits' health benefits. So if you add anthocyanins to the already extraordinarily healthful beta-carotene (the carrot's orange pigment), you have a pretty cool vegetable.

A number of juice brands—including Smart Juice, Bolthouse Farms, and Lakewood—are now using purple carrots to make carrot juice, as well as including purple carrots in other juice blends to boost their antioxidant power. Purple carrot juice has the natural sweetness of regular carrot juice with an undercurrent of berry flavor (from the anthocyanins).


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