Pink Lettuce: This Beautiful Vegetable Just Made Its Instagram Debut!

NDTV Food | Updated: February 27, 2018 19:35 IST

It's the time of pretty and colorful foods that look good on Instagram feeds! As more and more millennials drive food trends on social media, more and more quirky dishes and foods are flooding social media. The latest Instagram obsession of millennials seems to the pink-hued variety of the lettuce and it honestly looks too pretty to eat! The vegetable is called radicchio de Veneto, and although it's not something that has been cultivated recently, it has started making a fashionable appearance on thousands of foodie Instagrammers' feeds.

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The pink lettuce is till now only grown in Italy and the state of California in the US and is technically chicory. Apart from being extremely photogenic, it's also very versatile, much like its green cousin- the lettuce. The vegetable that has reddish pink leaves with white veins, has a slightly sweet, bitter and spicy taste, which is mellowed down by roasting or grilling it. It's usually used to add a beautiful pink tinge to salads and dips, as well as slightly zesty flavor. The plant is often covered with sand while being cultivated, so that the sunlight doesn't reach the stem. Also Read: 10 Best Lettuce Recipes

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The quirky and colorful vegetable will surely make you want to eat salad more often. It can either be eaten as is or is used in salad recipes instead of green leaves. Since the vegetable has a slightly sweet taste, it can be tossed in with fruits like oranges, grapefruits and pomegranate as well as red onions. This vegetable isn't just about the looks though. As is commonly known, red and orange colored vegetables and fruits have a compound called beta-carotene in them. Also Read: Beta Carotene: Not Exactly a Nutrient but an Essential Compound for Your Overall Health

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Beta-carotene is a precursor to Vitamin A and although the compound itself isn't an essential nutrient for the body, Vitamin A is. The vitamin is essential for healthy skin, muscles and a strong immunity, as well as good eye health. So the next time you come across this vegetable (you'll have to wait till it hits markets in India), you'll have more than one reason to put it in your vegetable cart!