Why is Murasakiimo purple?
I'm testing flickr.com, so uploaded a bunch of pics that I took on last Saturday.
I went to my grandmother's 7-kaiki (I don't know how to say it in English), but basically, it's been 7 years since my grandmother passed away and we visited her tomb and said hey ;) (She was very genki!)
Well, I can't believe 7 years passed since then.
The next ceremony will be 13-kaiki and the next will be the 17-kaiki. I guess we have this tradition not just for respecting the ancestors but also for the opportunities for family gathering.
Anyway, after this ceremony, my parents took everybody to a restaurant near my parents' house. The restaurant is called Soumonkyoraisou (草門去来荘) and I didn't realize when I was there but today I found out that it is one of Kiwa corporation's restaurants. (They have a bunch of nice restaurants).
The restaurant was built in a huge bamboo bushes and it's very old looking and interesting. The food was good too :)
We all ate too much.
At the end, they served a desert made of Murasaki-imo. It was yummy!
But while I was eating it, I started wondering why it is purple...
There must be some reasons it is purple, isn't it? Like any kind of evolution, the stronger DNA will survive .. :-?
Anyway, I started acting like a kid and kept asking my parents "Why is it purple?" "Why there are purple cabbages as well? Why is it like this? and that? .."
Hehe.. It's fun to act like a kid sometimes. But my parents didn't know the answer... I have to search it by myself as I'm an adult ;P
-----
OK... I tested flickr.com's publishing function. It is not so bad, but not much control and I can't preview the post... The Japanese didn't show up correctly.
I also don't know how to change the order of the photos when I upload them... Hmmm...
I'm editing this post at blogger.com...
posted by yuki @ 12/13/2004 11:53:00 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Purple veggies are purple mainly due to "anthocyanins".
Anthocyanins
The word anthocyanin is derived from two Greek words meaning plant and blue. Just like cyan and cyanide come from the Greek work kuanos, meaning dark blue.
Anthocyanins a member of a family of pigments (carotenoids for orange and chlorophyll for green are the other members) that is responsible for the coloration of flowers and fruits and also largely responsible for the red coloring of buds and young shoots. (Other pigments include xanthophyll (creates other yellow colors) and tannin (the remaining brown color after the other colors have disappeared from leaves. Major green antioxidant carotenoids include lutein and zeaxanthin found in spinach, collards, kale and broccoli. White onion/garlic color is from the phytochemical allicin that's supposed to have various anticancer/ cholesterol and blood pressure-lowering /infection-fighting properties). Anthocyanins create the blue, red and purple hues in plants such as apples and berries and grapes, and also color the autumn leaves (The pigment is produced after chlorophyll is destroyed due to environmental changes). They can be used as pH indicator because they change from red in acids to blue in bases. There are close to 300 anthocyanins that have been discovered.
Function
Anthocyanin-type pigments are found only in terrestrial plants. They are not found in animals, marine plants or in microorganisms. It is theorized that anthocyanin production is an evolutionary response to plants first venturing onto the stark primordial landscape under intense UV radiation. (Significant screening of the earth's surface from the effects of UV radiation didn't occur until after the advent of terrestrial plants. Oxygen in large amounts first had to be generated by the photosynthesis of land plants before the UV-screening ozone layer was formed). So growing plants in strong sunlight will often make them purpler.
So, Jack Sullivan says the main roles of anthocyanin-related pigments from plants' perspective is
--serving as a UV screen (produced in response to exposure of the plant to UV radiation, protecting the plant's DNA from damage by sunlight.)
---serving to attract insects for the purpose of pollination. (The pigments absorb strongly in the UV (ultraviolet) range, visually attracting insects but with light wavelengths that are invisible to humans. These pigments also play a major role in predation by carnivorous plants, attracting insects into the trap apparatus. Carnivorous plant lovers are avid collectors of rare "anthocyanin-free plants")
---serving as anti-feedents, their "disagreeable taste" serving to prevent animals from eating plants......
Some more info on anthocyanins in various fruits/veggies (including potatoes)
Anthocyanins in Various Fruits
Anthocyanins are thought to play a major role in the high antioxidant activity levels observed in red and blue fruits and vegetables like strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, saskatoon berries, cranberries, apples, cherries, pomegranates, red grapes, beets, red cabbage, black rice. Each fruit and vegetable has its own anthocyanin fingerprint. You can generally tell how much anthocyanin is in a fruit by the color, but there are various complicating factors in pigmentation and is also another major red-colored antioxidant called lycopene. (Lycopene is found in tomatoes, red and pink grapefruit, watermelon, papaya and guava. Diets rich in lycopene are being studied for their ability to fight heart disease and some cancers.) And beets do contain a lot of anthocyanins, but the also contain betalain, a more enduring red pigment also found in swiss chard, pokeweed, and other plants
Anthocyanin is only present when the concentration of sugars is high enough to trigger a reaction between sugars and proteins in plant cell sap, and light is required for the reaction to occur. Anthocyanin production is enhanced by sunlight, drought and temperature. Anthocyanin is responsible for the red skin of apples and the purple of black grapes. An apple that is red on one side and green on the other indicates that the red side has been in the sun and the green side in shade.
Health Benefits
Anthocyanins also appear help control blood sugar and protect against diabetes-related circulatory problems. Blue and purple fruits and vegetables are rich sources of anthocyanins and phenols, both of which are powerful antioxidants that can help reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease and Alzheimerﾕs. The anthocyanin pigments of Bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus) have long been used for improving visual acuity and treating circulatory disorders. There is experimental evidence that certain anthocyanins and flavonoids have anti-inflammatory properties, and there are reports that orally administered anthocyanins are beneficial for treating diabetes and ulcers and may have antiviral and antimicrobial activities. The chemical basis for these desirable properties of flavonoids is believed tobe related to their antioxidant capacityﾑtheir ability to scavenge and trap free radicals that damage biomolecules.
Interest in anthocyanin pigments has intensified largely because of their possible health benefits as dietary antioxidants. Anthocyanins are one class of flavonoid compounds, which are widely distributed plant polyphenols. Flavonols, flavan-3-ols, flavones, flavanones, and flavanonols are additional classes of flavonoids that differ in their oxidation state from the anthocyanins. Solutions of these compounds are colorless or pale yellow. (Other phenolic compounds that comprise part of our diet include phenolic acids and their esters, such as chlorogenic acid and polymeric tannins. Polyphenolics contribute to food and beverage color by serving as substrates for an enzyme to produce brown pigments. The procyanidins and condensed tannins provide astringency and bitterness in tea and wine.)
There is considerable anecdotal and epidemiological evidence that dietary anthocyanin pigments and polyphenolics may have preventive and therapeutic roles in a number of human diseases. Through the much publicized ﾒFrench paradoxﾓ, the public has become aware that certain populations of red-wine drinkers in France and Italy have much lower rates of coronary heart disease (CHD) than their North American and Northern European counterparts. It is widely accepted that red wine phenolics contribute at least partly to this beneficial effect. A number of studies have shown that mortality from CHD isﾊinversely correlated with intake of flavonoids in the diet. Flavonoids may also help prevent strokes.
(Polyphenolics and anthocyanins undergo considerable degradation during processing. cientists have measured over 50% loss of anthocyanins in cherries during 6 months frozen storage at -10ｼC.)
Grapes/Wine
Government websites like to talk about raisins being good anthocyanin sources rather than wine.....
Red grape species contain delphinidin, cyanidin, petunidin, peonidin, and malvidin 3-glucosides, as well as the acylated forms of these pigments. Red wine contains over 15 anthocyanin monomers (type of chemical compound), the varying proportions of which, depending on the type of grape. These varying pigments establish the various shades of the wine's color.
Blueberries
In USDA studies, blueberries emerged as number-one in antioxidants compared with other fruits and vegetables. Blueberries are the top antioxidant capacity fruit in a laboratory testing procedure called Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity - ORAC - developed by the USDA. ORAC is recognized as the definitive measurement of antioxidant capacity. One-half cup of blueberries delivers as much antioxidant power as five serving of other fruits and vegetables such as peas, carrots, apples, squash and broccoli.
Barbara Shukitt-Hale, also at the USDA research center, said that older animals with impairments in learning, memory and coordination begin to show significant signs of improvement after a 2-month diet of blueberries. She and her colleagues reported new evidence that the substance that gives the fruit its vibrant color, called anthocyanin, has been shown to cross the brain's protective barrier. Animals with the highest level of these compounds had the most robust cognitive boost.
(Ayamurasaki Sweetpotato)
The purple-fleshed sweetpotato contains a high level of anthocyanins. The predominant anthocyanin pigments are mono- or diacylated forms of cyanidin and peonidin, although the ratio of acylated anthocyanins varies with sweetpotato variety, Ayamurasaki and Murasakimasari are rich in peonidin aglycon anthocyanins. Ayamurasaki extract is reported to possess in-vitro antioxidative (or radical scavenging), antimutagenic, and angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibiting activities, and exhibited an ameliorative effect against carbon tetrachloride-induced liver injury in rats. In addition, the Ayamurasaki extract has demonstrated abilities to restore serum γ-GTP, GOT, and GPT to normal levels in human volunteers with impaired hepatic function and to reduce blood pressure to normal levels in volunteers with hypertension.
Charles Brown, USDA Research Geneticist at Prosser, Washington, is working on improving the potato as a functional food. He supplied us with anthocyanin-containing purple and red-fleshed experimental cultivars along with some common potato varieties. We analyzed the anthocyanin pigment content and antioxidant levels and found that potatoes with pigmented flesh displayed antioxidant capacities 2-3 times greater than unpigmented varieties. This preliminary data has enabled us to get a USDA grant, ﾒDeveloping the potato as a functional food: Breeding, compositional analysis and human nutrition studies
Carrots
Did you know that carrots have been orange for just 400 years? Carrots were purple until the Dutch patriotically bred orange ones. The purple color of purple carrots is water soluble, so it turns your hands purple. Originally carrots came in several colors, including white, purple, red, yellow, green and black.
And a story on a BBC site says that the orange color came about in the 17th Century when patriotic Dutch growers favoured the colour - as used on the national flag. Purple carrots went on sale in the UK in 2002.
Rice
People in thailand are working to develop more nutricious brown rice rich in anthocyanin. In brown rice, anthocyanin biosynthesis can produce four different rice pericarp colors including white, light-brown, red and purple.
Lastly, there is a big controversy over whether purple food is attractive to people....
As I mentioned before, Jack Sullivan says the third main role of anthocyanins is to serve as anti-feedents, their disagreeable taste serving to prevent animals from eating plants......
According to PBH (Produce for Better Health Foundation) research, Americans currently divide their fruit and vegetable consumption almost evenly among the four biggest color groups: red (25%), yellow/orange (27%), white (23%) and green (25%). Purple and blue fruits and vegetables account for just three percent of all fruit and vegetable consumption.
Food writer Roz Denny said: "Research tends to show [kids] don't like the colour green as they associate it with vegetables." and that blue food is highly unattractive to kids. She added: "I remember when I was at college and we did some blind tasting of foods. We found that people would not eat anything which was blue. "Nobody could tell us why they did not like it apart from the fact that it was blue. "We tried everything from blue bread to blue rice pudding but people just turned their noses up at it all. People tend to favour earthy colours such as browns and reds and they have become more suspicious of lurid colours. Gold and red were always associated with festivities and richness. In the Far East when they prepared food for the gods they would always make it golden. Red also tends to remind us of summer and autumn when everything seems to be going well - it is a subconscious thing but I think we used to associate these colours with treats. Things are changing - you don't tend to see bright golden fish fingers or breadcrumbs any more. People tend to favour more natural colours."
However, nutritional scientist Claire Maceivilly of the British Nutritional Foundation said: "Research has shown that while children don't like green food they tend to go for red colours. In one study the only way they could convince the youngsters to eat cabbage was by adding tomatoes to make the food go red."
Here is an article by a blue food grower/cooker..... who would guess that american leftists are the most vehement blue food haters!?
In Praise of Purple
In every herd of fluffy white sheep there's always a black one to break up the monotony. The green grasses and herbs that the sheep graze upon manifest this same whimsical tendency of nature to honor her rules by giving birth to exceptions. For many plant species there are both dominant green forms and less frequently encountered purple or red types. Over the centuries gardeners have been led by their eyes to select out and propagate the most colorful freaks. Today the color hungry among us can choose to graze on purple artichokes, purple asparagus, purple string beans, purple broccoli, even purple basil.
The most widespread of any of these black sheep of the vegetable kingdom are purple cabbages which have come to be almost as common in supermarket display cases as their green cousins. But don't worry; this trend has its limits. For years I've dabbled in growing and selling a wide mix of purple produce and I can tell you first hand that purple food has problems that challenge any marketing effort. Everyone needs to eat to survive, but not everyone needs to eat purple food. Some people probably wouldn't swallow a mouthful of purple if it was their last meal on earth; I'm thinking here of kids, cooks, and communists. While its dangerous to generalize about humanity, experience has taught me that these three groups in particular have issues with purple food that invite speculation.
When it comes to food, kids can be the most conservative consumers of all. Maybe your kids will eat purple vegetables but mine certainly won't. I made them purple mashed potatoes once with tender, purple potatoes freshly dug for the occasion thinking that they would relish the novelty. The mashed potatoes had a violet color and a tantalizing, earthy aroma. My kids' faces were green with panic at the thought of even stirring their food with a fork. This fear is a natural defense mechanism, I suppose, a child's way of avoiding poison. Considering that these same kids would fight over an old dirty potato chip that's spent a week on the floor, this survival instinct is ironic.
Some kids never grow up. When I sold at the farmer's market in San Jose I was always struck by the number of folks who would react with alarm to any unusual vegetables on my tables. "What's that?" they would bark, their finger pointing unsteadily at a purple broccoli. These were middle class people, middle aged, and white to the bone; my tribe if I've ever had one. I would pitch in with some illuminating observations to answer their concerns, but after hearing me rave away for five minutes they'd say, "Well I never heard of it." Their whole posture was defensive, as though a bite of purple broccoli might cause them to break out in paisley colored hives, start speaking with a French accent, or suddenly realize they're gay.
Cooks have conflicting attitudes towards purple food. One of the biggest challenges in pleasing a cook is to cultivate an empathetic bedside routine to deal with their disappointments when their highest hopes aren't realized. A would be chef, perhaps feeling close for the moment to the spirit of Martha within, will purchase purple string beans thinking to pair them up with green and yellow string beans for a dazzling display of culinary prowess. They despair when the purple beans turn green at the first touch of heat and they watch their concept go up in steam.
Purple varieties of vegetables don't always taste the same as their green relatives. Purple artichokes have a stronger flavor than their green cousins, wilder with a more pronounced bitterness, and they are smaller too, and spinier. I like them; some people don't. Last year a woman complained that the purple basil I was growing tasted "metallic." She was right. This year I've switched to a variety of basil called Red Rubin which is just as aromatic and sweet as its green Genovese twin. Close your eyes and you couldn't tell the two basils apart, but open your eyes and WOW does that purple ever look cool in a sungold tomato salad.
The most difficult customers to sell on purple food have turned out to be communists. I used to run into some real hardliners over at the Berkeley Farmer's Market and their reaction to unusual vegetable varieties bordered at times on overt hostility. "Designer vegetables for yuppie scum!" they would rant. I, the grower, was implicated in the shame they heaped on the yuppies for chowing down on color, while millions starve. This attitude, coming as it did from avowed communist party members has always puzzled me. If you're going to endorse a godless, materialistic ideology, why get so wrapped up in the nuances of class consciousness that you forget to enjoy the endless variety of color, fragrance, and flavor that the material world offers? If you are going to denounce religion as an opiate of the masses why cling so dearly to a puritanical rejection of luxury? I'm sure there are plenty of Italian communists who have learned to spice up the revolution with purple basil. Lighten up folks. Taste the purple!
Hi Yuki!
Wow, this is an incredible compendium of information on anthocyanins! What an amazingly informative blog you have! I'm truly astounded to learn so much about the various aspects of food colors. Why don't you ask your reader/commentors about the functional characteristics and histories of various chinese foods and spices?
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