PURPLE OR GREEN, WHICH IS BEST?

According to research conducted at the Ohio State University and reported in “The Guardian,” research with rats gives us the answer.
We know eating our vegetables is very important to keep the acid-alkaline of the body at the proper level to ward off germ invaders. In general, green is next best to protect us from colds and flu.

Green is good, but purple is better. It is the presence of the cancer-killing antioxidant anthocyanin that marks darkly colored vegetables (e.g., eggplant, red cabbage, elderberries, bilberries, purple corn and chokeberries) as “super-foods.” Research with rats fed anthocyanin showed a 65 percent drop in cancer tumours when compared to rats fed a regular diet.

My parents were married in 1915 and when the last of their eight children arrived in 1938 it could mean we are all protected from the influenza that had arrived in 1918 after World War I. The only fruit grown in our part of the windswept Alberta prairies was the hardy chokecherry. It was a reddish purple berry which must have given us those wonderful anthocyanins for protection. Of course it may have been a major help that we were not served food that contained trans-fats and except for a piece of cake every Sunday very little sweets were part of our menu.

I noticed last week that our local health store had brought in purple kale. It makes a great smoothie, especially when a little pineapple is added along with other greens.