HEALTH - The new superfoods

Last decade was awash with antioxidant-packed berries. 

So what new wonder foods are set to hit our shores 

in 2010 and beyond?

 

I remember the first time I tried wheatgrass. It was about 10 years ago and I was in Byron Bay, on the coast of northern New South Wales.I had gone into a juice shop and there on the counter was a tray of what looked like thick, stringy grass. "What's that?"" I asked the guy making the juice. He started spouting on about the health benefits of wheatgrass shots and how this product would change my life. I tried it and frankly.

I tried it and, frankly, it didn't change my life. It tasted like wet grass clippings and if there were any health benefits, I didn't notice them. The wheatgrass enthusiasm of the past decade might be waning, but there's no stopping growers and producers coming up with new fruits and vegetables to tempt our tastebuds and bamboozle us with notions about health benefits we didn't know we could be experiencing.

Some of these might come and go, while others will endure. Where would we be without blueberries, truss tomatoes, rocket, baby spinach, broccolini, galangal, topless pineapples, seedless watermelon, enoki mushrooms, bok choy, choy sum and all the other fresh produce we hadn't heard of a decade ago? With new products being sourced from around the world, our palates are set to experience some amazing new flavours. Here's a taste of what's heading our way.

Micro greens

Micro greens, also known as micro leaves or living greens, are small, potted tubs of baby vegetables such as radish, beetroot, red and green mustard leaves, sunflower sprouts, buckwheat and broccoli. They are perfect for popping into salads.

According to Frances Michaels, of organic gardening supplier Green Harvest in Maleny, Queensland, interest in micro greens is growing rapidly because they are mildly flavoured, full of health benefits and easy to grow."They are leaves that have gone beyond the sprouting stage but aren't fully grown yet, so they have a wonderful taste, much milder than the full-grown vegetable," she says. "But buy organic, because the seed has to be free of contamination."

Jicama

Michaels says that if she had to predict one item that will be big at the greengrocer this decade, it's jicama (pronounced "hick-a-mer"), a South American tuba also known as yam bean or Mexican turnip. "You wouldn't go into a supermarket in America without seeing one," she says, "and I think that will be the same here soon."

Jicamas, which look like lumpy potatoes, are crisp and sweet and can be sliced and eaten like corn chips or put into salads. Like potatoes, they are starchy and high in carbohydrates. "They deserve to be as well known as carrots," she says.

Heirloom carrots

Often found in restaurants, heirloom vegetables and fruits are becoming popular with home gardeners and diners. That popularity is set to translate to supermarket shelves as an eye-popping variety of vegetables become available. Heirloom carrots, which can be red, purple, brown, orange, yellow or white, are among those vegies that will be seen more often, not only because they look great.

Talei Kenyon, from Victorian-based seed supplier The Digger's Club, says heirlooms give people a sense of reconnecting with their food. "If you taste one of these heirloom carrots you'll see that they taste totally different to the standard carrots we eat," she says. "It's amazing."

Purple cape cauliflower and broccoli romanesco

Another two heirlooms to look out for are the beautiful purple cape cauliflower and the bizarre broccoli romanesco. With its vibrantly coloured florets, the purple cauliflower is perfect eaten raw, and has additional health properties due to its colour.

"The rule is that vegetables with a lot of colour have more nutrients," Michaels says. The lime-green broccoli, which looks more like a cauliflower than a traditional broccoli, is said to taste quite different to its common green cousin. "It's creamy and very delicious," she says.

Kumatoes

If vine-ripened and truss tomatoes were fashionable salad items this decade, the next big thing will be new tomato types such as the kumato. Tristan Harris, of fruit and vegetable chain Harris Farm Markets, says kumatoes epitomise the new type of tomato.

"They used to grow big, plump tomatoes that looked good but tasted of water," he says. "Now people want tomatoes that taste good." Originally from the Galapagos Islands, the kumato is a wild tomato that has been crossed with more conventional varieties. Black-brown in colour, it has intense flavour and is bursting with vitamin C.

Achacha

Harris says the influx of South American students to Australia is starting to influence items on supermarket shelves, with Harris Farm this year commencing sales of achacha fruit. A native of the Amazon basin of Bolivia, achacha, also called achachairu, is sweet and zingy, a little like a lychee.

"It's got a firm orange skin and the inside is quite similar in texture to a mangosteen," Harris says. "South America is also seen as a hot travel destination, so Australians who go there want to be able to eat the food they have tried there when they get back."

Saw-tooth coriander, perilla and edible chrysanthemum

Chef and TV personality Luke Nguyen, from Sydney restaurant Red Lantern, says Australians are gaining awareness of the range of herbs and leafy green vegetables from South-East Asia. "There's some amazing stuff being sold in Cabramatta [in western Sydney] that you can't even get at the markets," he says. "People are growing stuff in their backyards to supply to restaurants because the demand is there."

Those vegetables and herbs include Thai and Vietnamese favourites saw-tooth coriander, which has a strong coriander flavour but long, thin leaves; perilla, which has a zesty, minty taste; and edible chrysanthemum, which is bitter but packed with vitamin B.

Native Australian berries

Although there has been an increase in interest in "bush tucker foods" over the past decade, Harris says there is now real interest in commercial use of Australian native produce, especially berries. Fruits such as Cedar Bay cherries, Davidson's plums, sandpaper figs, quandongs and native raspberries could be in our stores in a few years, or if not, "We might be able to put them in our range of yoghurts so that people can get a taste of them," Harris says. Known for their health benefits and easy to grow in Australia, bush foods may prove to be this century's most sustainable edibles.

Source: http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/