The humble purple sweet potato: It’s the next new fangled super-food and it probably will be coming to a produce department near you sometime soon.

With so many different fruits and vegetables we have seen it before: claims that this or that next type of produce is going to be the next big ‘superfood’.  More recently with several different types of berries, for example, we have been told this by first scientists, then the media, and then finally by marketers. (who has not received at least one spam email heralding the merits of the acai berry?).  Anyhow at present a strain of purple sweet potato is being developed and tested as the new super food, and it already has scientists exclaiming that the vegetable may actually stop people from developing cancer. Seriously, that is quite aremarkable claim to hear made about any kind or type of produce, don’t you think?. The logic here is that the designer sweet potato, cultivated for its purple anti-cancer pigmentation, is also alleged to contain within it some anti-ageing and antioxidant chemicals. A crop-development expert in the United States has developed this new variety of purple sweet potato with a thicker purple skin and flesh to increase its inherent cancer-fighting properties. Soyoung Lim, a researcher from Kansas State University, said that it differed from purple sweet potato varieties already found in most grocery outlets because both the newer potato’s flesh and skin were purple.

Lim said the potato’s colouring contained the chemical anthocyanin, which is known to lower the risk of cancer and could even possibly slow down certain types of the disease.  According to Lim, “The colour is the important part because the purple colour is responsible for the amount of anthocyanin in the potato.”  Scientists have already used two strands of anthocyanin to treat colon cancer and found that the pigment slowed down the growth of cancerous cells.  Anthocyanin, which produces red, blue or purple colours in various types of food, can also be found in blueberries, red grapes and red cabbage, though the specially grown purple sweet potato has a higher concentration of the chemical than any other species of potato.  Dr Weiqun Wang, who was also involved in testing the potato, has said that the new purple sweet potato tasted sweeter than other potatoes but was still perfectly edible.  According to Wang, “It’s good not only for cancer prevention but other benefits like antioxidants as well.”

The high-concentration purple sweet potato is due for a series of clinical trials next year, so it might actually be a while before it is made available for retail to the general public.  Certainly like I mentioned before, there have been so many other food stuffs that have been the focus of claims as to their possible health benefits, yet I do not recall before any variety of food that was tagged with such a basic claim that carried with it such potentially major implications for human health and wellbeing.  As the new purple sweet potato is put through its paces, so to speak, through the next year or so, I look forward to hearing just how impressive the clinical trial results are  .