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🌱☘️ microgreens varieties ☘️🌱 grow & eat your mini greens
Pictured: broccoli, beet, radish, wheatgrass, alfalfa, purple basil, amaranth, sunflower
[Wikipedia] Microgreens are vegetable greens (not to be confused with sprouts or shoots) harvested just after the cotyledon leaves have developed with one set of true leaves. They are used as a nutrition supplement, a visual enhancement, and a flavor and texture enhancement. Microgreens are used to add sweetness and spiciness to foods. Microgreens are smaller than “baby greens” because they are harvested very soon after sprouting, rather than after the plant has matured to produce multiple leaves. Among upscale grocers, they are now considered a specialty genre of greens, good for garnishing salads, soups, sandwiches, and plates.[1][2] They can be used as a main vegetable as well in certain recipes for added flavor and nutrition.
Somewhere between a sprout and a baby veggie
“Microgreens are also called ‘vegetable confetti’ because they are tiny, beautiful greens characterized by a variety of colors and shapes, as well as by very different and intense, sometimes surprising, flavors,” Di Gioia says. There are hundreds of different varieties of microgreens. Pea, sunflower, broccoli, and radish microgreens are some of the most popular varieties among Matchett’s customers. Other varieties include beets, Swiss chard, cucumber, sweet pea, endive, savoy, Brussels sprouts, mustards, cauliflower, tatsoi, spinach, kohlrabi, mint, basil, sorrel, cauliflower, arugula, collard, fenugreek, carrot, mizuna, corn, turnip, chervil, celery, scallions, and komatsuna...
“Over the last few years, several studies have suggested that microgreens are nutrient-dense, being a good source of essential minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants,” Di Gioia says. While “there is a lot of variability between species and growing conditions,” as Di Gioia points out, generally speaking microgreens often have a greater concentration of these micronutrients than their full-grown counterparts, pound for pound. Many microgreens are four to six times higher in vitamins and antioxidants than the fully grown plant, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. (source)