Why You Should Add A Purple Pepper To Your Plate

I purchased starter plants for much of my square foot garden, and somehow ended up with a few purple pepper plants.  Although unexpected, we’ve incorporated several of them into meals.  But until I watched what happened when my boys tossed one into a pot of boiling water, it hadn’t really occurred to me to wonder how they were different from “normal” bell peppers.

The Purple Pepper

As you probably know, bell pepper plants are not “hot,” which is good for me, because my wife generally won’t eat anything hotter than black pepper.  And sometimes that’s too much.  But luckily bell peppers don’t contain the gene that’s responsible for creating capsaicin – the chemical that makes “heat” in other pepper plants.

When it comes to growing bell peppers, what you may not know is that the green bell peppers with which we’re all so familiar are actually the “unripe” version of the fruit of the pepper plant.  If left long enough, all bell peppers will change colors as the fruit continues to ripen, giving rise to red, yellow, chocolate, orange, white, and even purple peppers.  Interestingly enough, all of these different colored peppers have their slightly different flavors and nutrient contents.  Not only is the nutrient content different, but the pigments responsible for the different colors also provide their own unique properties.

The compound responsible for the purple coloration in the purple pepper is anthocyanin.  A powerful antioxidant, anthocyanin is one of the reasons blueberries get such accolades for its health benefits.  It also has a tendency to leach out of foods when they’re immersed in water, which is why anthocyanin-rich foods often times revert to a green color when cooked in water.  This explains the color change my kids induced.  It may also explain why cooking with some peppers, has been shown to inhibit the oxidation of fatty acids.

According to the FDA’s website, 100-grams of raw peppers contains 20-30 calories, with brighter colored fruits being slightly sweeter than darker counterparts.  All bell peppers are an excellent source of vitamin A (or its precursor), with purple peppers supplying up to 5% of the RDA.  What’s not often discussed is the fact that bell peppers are also a great source of vitamin C as well.

My experience cooking with purple peppers?  They aren’t as sweet as the more common red or yellow peppers, and they maintain a crunchy texture better than red, yellow, orange peppers during cooking.  Otherwise, they’re not really any different than any other bell pepper.  Plus, you get the possible benefits of anthoxyanin.  It’s a win, win!