Unlike Swiss cheese, Swiss chard does not have holes.
- Swiss chard is a biennial vegetable primarily grown for its edible leaves.
- ‘Swiss chard’ is also known as ‘silverbeet’, ‘spinach beet’, crab beet’, ‘seakale beet’, ‘mangold’, ‘chard’, ‘white beet’, ‘perpetual spinach’, ‘strawberry spinach’, ‘Roman kale’ and ‘bright lights’.
- Swiss chard has the scientific name Beta vulgaris cicla and is from the beet genus, Beta vulgaris, and is related to beetroots and sugar beets.
- Swiss chard is from the family Amaranthaceae, the family of amaranths, which is the same family that the leaf vegetable, spinach, is from, and the plant is native to Europe’s Mediterranean.
- Swiss chard is commonly used raw or cooked, in salads or other dishes, or sauteed as a side vegetable, and is regularly used in Mediterranean cuisine.
- Swiss chard can have a bitter taste when raw that can be removed by cooking, mostly caused by the oxalic acid in the vegetable, and large quantities can cause health issues for some people.
- Swiss chard is extremely high in vitamin K, very high in vitamin A, high in vitamin C, and has many other beneficial vitamins and minerals.
- ‘Swiss chard’ is said to have been named to communicate a difference between another, similar looking or similarly named vegetable.
- Swiss chard has large, glossy looking, bubbly textured leaves that can be green or a reddish purple colour, and the thick stems or stalks can be white, red, yellow, orange or purple.
- It is best to store Swiss chard unwashed, as it can otherwise easily deteriorate, and it is recommended that it be kept in a sealed plastic bag with air removed, in the refrigerator.
Bibliography:
Chard, 2014, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chard
Swiss chard, 2014, The World’s Healthiest Foods, http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=16
