🌱 Ingredient Spotlight: Asparagus!
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Eaten raw, juiced, or cooked, this vegetable is high in: essential minerals like zinc and selenium and vitamins like A, K and folate. They have active plant constituent compounds that help break up oxalic acid crystals, contain an amino acid that help relieve the body from poor digestion or exhaustion, are high in an antioxidant called glutathione, contain inulin which feed good gut bacteria, and have a good amount of healthy fiber and plant protein.
🟩 Asparagus comes in various colors though green is the most common. Green and purple asparagus are a variety of asparagus. White asparagus is made from blocking asparagus from the sun by piling soil on top of the emerging spears. Some people think white asparagus is not healthy to eat because of this, but we cannot confirm nor deny. 😉 BTW purple asparagus turns green when cooked.
❓ Did you know? They take nearly 3 years from planted as a seed to when they are ready to harvest! 🪴 Asparagus grown from seed result in a 50/50 mix of male and female plants. The flowers look slightly different between the two and the female plants produce a red berry. The production of this berry diverts energy from the plant though, making the female plant less productive per acre. That is why commercial asparagus are genetic male clones for better production yield.
🏹 Fun fact: The emperor Caesar Augustus would bark “Velocius quam asparagi conquantur!” or “Faster than cooking asparagus,” which can be loosely translated as, “Get going already!” Augustus was such a connoisseur of the elegant vegetable, he organized elite military units to procure it for him. The famed Asparagus Fleets made rounds in the empire to import the best varietals back to Rome, while the fastest runners were employed to carry fresh spears high in the Alps, where it could be frozen for later use.
