Facts About Peppers
January 4, 2009 by BB
Filed under Food & Drink
by: Laura Ng
Ever wonder if peppers are fruits or vegetables? Actually, peppers are fruits but eaten as vegetables most of the time.
Peppers can be very flexible in any food combinations, be it barbecues, baking, steaming, stir-frying with any vegetables, nuts, seeds or legumes. They can even be eaten raw as snacks or in salads. It’s no wonder they are the favourites of the vegetarians and vegans.
They come from the colorful Capsicum family which can be split into two main categories – sweet bell peppers and the spicy chillies, such as jalapenos. The difference arises from the presence of capsaicin in chillies (which is explained later) but not in sweet bell peppers.
Sweet bell peppers are also known as capsicums, sweet peppers or green/red peppers.
All sweet bell peppers start out green and change color as they ripen. Depending on the stage of ripeness and their variety, their colors range from orange, yellow, red, purple, brown, black, ivory or green and so do their sweetness.
But green bell peppers remain green throughout the ripening process. Thus, it can be challenging to differentiate the other bell peppers from the green variety before they ripen.
All peppers are an excellent source of vitamin C. Green bell peppers contain as much as two times of vitamin C as oranges while red or yellow pepper pack three or four times the daily value of vitamin C.
