Can Red Tint Rescue Spinach?

Nov. 11, 2019
A USDA researcher has developed a breed of spinach that adds red-purple tints to its green hue.

A USDA researcher has developed a breed of spinach that adds red-purple tints to its green hue – possibly a way to help the vegetable recover from a slump caused by a contamination scare.

Beiquan Mou, a USDA research geneticist based in Salinas, Calif., has developed what the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service is billing as the world’s first true red spinach. Mou managed to breed, without bioengineering, spinach in which a phytonutrient called betacyanin is distributed into the leaves, giving them a distinct red-purple tint akin to cabbage. The plant is called USDA Red.

Other products have been marketed as “red spinach,” but they were either plants other than spinach, or spinach with red confined to the stems.

In addition to the novel color, the betacyanin in USDA Red adds to its antioxidant potential, already a significant nutritional aspect of spinach.

The USDA hopes its new spinach will re-energize sales. An E. coli outbreak traced to spinach in 2006, which sickened 102 people, caused consumption to drop 30% on a per-capita basis, to 1.6 pounds annually.

Sponsored Recommendations

Revolutionizing Healthcare: The Impact of Digitalization in Biopharma Innovation

Biopharma enables an entirely new level of innovation that’s simply not possible in conventional drug development. It’s an approach that can fundamentally change the way healthcare...

Navigating the Automotive Industry's Electric Future

The automotive industry is at a turning point. Bloomberg estimates that by 2040, 54% of new vehicle sales will be electric. And by 2030, we’re looking at 100% of passenger vehicles...

Unified Process Control Brings Operational Clarity

Inland Empire Utilities Agency replaces its SCADA enterprise system with the PlantPAx Distributed Control System and reduces complexity for operators

PlantPAx DCS Improves Operational Reliability

KC Water calls on R.E. Pedrotti to replace obsolete wastewater SCADA solution with a unified Modern Distributed Control System (DCS).