14 Things You Never Knew About Asparagus

With such a short asparagus season I love using this vegetable on the Plan Z Diet whenever I can. I dug up some little know facts on this green giant.

By: Zola
Chief Dieter
Plan Z Diet





I planted an asparagus patch once.

While doing my Plan Z Diet research I learned you should not harvest it the first year. I followed those directions and let it mature through the year. I looked forward to the day when I’d be able to pick and eat my own asparagus. Unfortunately, the next Spring I ran into a situation with weeds encroaching from the cornfield behind my house. I had to till under the part of the garden that had my asparagus. I lost my little asparagus dream.

As the years passed, each Spring I would be driving along the rural roads that surrounded my neighborhood and I’d see ladies of Asian descent stooping down in the roadside drainage areas. They were picking something. I figured out they were picking wild asparagus! They harvested each year and sold their take at the local farmers market. Kudos to them!

So I gave up my goal of my own asparagus patch but each Spring, as May approaches, I still get a hankering for asparagus on the Plan Z Diet. My newest Plan Z Diet recipe is a low carb quiche that features a combo of asparagus, mushrooms and gruyere cheese. BIG YUM!

I thought I’d lay out some fun asparagus trivia for you to chew on. Here are 14 asparagus tidbits:

• Asparagus is one of the only perennial vegetables.

• There are approximately 300 asparagus varieties but only 20 are edible.

• The most common asparagus variety is green in color. Two other edible varieties are white and purple.

• In Europe they call white asparagus “white gold” or “edible ivory” and refer to it as the “royal vegetable”.

• White asparagus is less bitter and much more tender. It’s also more expensive.

• White asparagus is grown underground. That’s why it stays white. It never sees the sun. Otherwise it would turn green.

• Wild asparagus is a species with a long history of use in India and Asia as a botanical medicine. (No wonder those ladies were enthusiastically picking it!)

• Thin asparagus can be eaten without peeling it, but if it’s the fatter asparagus you’ll want to peel it before you cook it.

• Asparagus is 93% water.

• In France, asparagus is most often served with Hollandaise sauce.

• Depending on which report you read somewhere between 22% and 50% of the population report having pungent urine after they eat asparagus. Researchers have never been able to figure out if only some people have pungent urine or only some people can smell pungent urine. It’s still a mystery.

• Asparagus is reported to show a lowering of disease risk for things like heart disease and type 2 diabetes. So eat up!

• Asparagus, like other vegetables doesn’t instantly “die” when it’s picked. It still has metabolic activity but it does spoil pretty quickly. It loses its moisture. So that’s why you see it at the grocery store standing in water. Asparagus should be eaten within 48 hours of purchase for best flavor.

• Asparagus is such a big cash crop in California’s Sacramento- San Joaquin River Delta that they have an asparagus festival every year. So does Hart, Michigan. In the Vale of Evesham in Worcestershire, England, they produce more asparagus than any other region in northern Europe so they have a week long asparagus festival and the locals dress up as asparagus and parade around.

Click here to try a tasty Plan Z Diet asparagus quiche.

Plan Z Diet Asparagus Quiche

Cheers,


To read more of Zola's blogs CLICK HERE or head over to https://www.planzdiet.com/blog/