Rainbow veg tastes as good as it looks

IT’S one of Britain’s most colourful vegetables and is as beautiful as it is nutritious, but the chances are you will have never tried rainbow chard.

Popular in the Victorian era, when it was grown not just as a food but also for ornamental reasons, this leafy member of the beet family fell out of favour in the first half of the 20th century.

Since then, growers have crossed it with other beet family vegetables to produce a rainbow of hues which are popular in America, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Greece. Now it’s staging a comeback in Britain, and you can find it once again on supermarket shelves.

Available in red, pink, orange, yellow and white varieties, rainbow chard is grown in Lincolnshire and Kent.

Luke Shutler, Tesco’s vegetable buyer, says: ‘Not only does rainbow chard look amazing as part of a salad, it’s also a great way to get children to eat their greens — and reds, yellows, oranges, whites and pinks.

‘The leaves have a wonderfully sweet and nutty flavour, and you can eat chard raw in salads or sauteed, baked and steamed.’ He says demand for the vegetable is expected to grow as shoppers increase their vegetable intake.

Chard (of which there are three main varieties: green, aka Swiss Chard, Red, and Rainbow) is low in fat and high in a range of nutrients including vitamins A and C, f olic acid, potassium, magnesium and iron.

It’s still a relatively small crop for British producers: Tesco says about 17 hectares are currently being used for chard in Britain, producing roughly 120 tonnes a year.

Tesco finest* Rainbow Chard, £1.85 for a 200g pack, available until September.