Young or mature ROOT vegetables?

[bharminder]

Hi is it better to eat young or mature root vegetables like daikon, beet, celery root, etc. Should I look for the smaller ones or the big massive ones? This question includes turnips, rootabagas, radishes, burdock root, parsnips, sunchokes, etc

[KD]

how are you preparing them?

radishes, sunchokes and perhaps small quantities of shaved beet, daikon, and burdock are the only things I would consider eating raw.

I know young greens are generally seen as 'better', but roots I would guess the longer they grow or turn the more the starch converts to sugar.

[bharminder]

Is there more nutrition in the more mature ROOTS?
 For example, they drive down further into the ground, so
they absorb more nutrients at a greater depth
than the less mature ROOTS.



So young greens are considered better? Is that
because they taste better(less bitter), or because
they are more nutritious?


I had a sample of daikon at the store. It was juicy, crispy, and crunchy, without much flavor.

Radishes, on the other hand,
I do not recommend, They give me a headache.

Beets are excellent, and celery root is tasty.

[yuli]

Try to get organic and get the ones that are not huge but at most medium size (depends on which type of root of course)...I always go for the medium-small, they tend to have much more flavor and taste better.

Keep in mind that if you don't like a root it MAY be a bad batch or a bad sort...for example I usually get delicious sweet potato thats a deep orange. Today I got sweet potato somewhere else and when I sliced it the color was a pale orange-pink instead, it had no taste! I cooked it to see if that would make it better but it still was crappy. So try to find a source of high quality organic and local veggies if you eat them.

......
I had a sample of daikon at the store. It was juicy, crispy, and crunchy, without much flavor.

Radishes, on the other hand,
I do not recommend, They give me a headache.

Beets are excellent, and celery root is tasty....

Seems we have very different root tastes, daikon (at least the one I get) has a lot of radishy flavor which is good, when shaved it spices up a salad. I like it with carrots and red cabbage etc.
I eat the little red radishes in small amounts but have never got a headache from them, I like them with mayo however they are not the best tasting roots IMO.
Some or the best to me are parsnips and purple-top turnips, yum.
Beets are not bad but again only in small amounts, and for some reason the taste or raw celery is a little creepy to me, so I can't really enjoy.
Carrots of course most people like, they are great, get the little organic ones with the green tops not the giant ones or 'baby carrots'.

Out of all the vegetables I love roots and cabbages the most, I would be sad without them.

I have only eaten cabbage as my vegetable for the past few days...still pigging out on sauerkraut we made, its got little shaving of carrot and carraway seeds, its both sour and spicy but its half-fermented-half fresh, I love it at that state. Sometimes the store bought saurkraut is too bland and soggy, and too sour without enough zest/spice )=
Anyone who likes saurkraut I recommend you to make your own 

[bharminder]

Do you think that the longer a ROOT vegetable goes into the
ground the more nutrients it soaks up, flavor aside?


The red radishes taste good, in small amounts. Once I ate too many
 daikon radishes(also red) and got a headache. Another time, I ate 2 radishes,
one black radish, and one watermelon radish, and that stuff was so strong.
 Particularly the black one. When I say daikon, i mean the long white
carrot shaped ones.


I think beets are good because I've read online that they stimulate and
 cleanse the liver, which is a good thing because a healthy liver helps to
support a healthy body.

[djr_81]

Do you think that the longer a ROOT vegetable goes into the
ground the more nutrients it soaks up, flavor aside?

I do. Think about it; most plants root down from the surface to ~6 inches. Below that depth is a large reservoir of minerals which are only tapped by really deep rooting plants. More mature roots will usually be more pithy/fibrous but should be more nutrient dense.

I think beets are good because I've read online that they stimulate and
 cleanse the liver, which is a good thing because a healthy liver helps to
support a healthy body.

Beets are nourishing to the blood. I'd imagine since the liver processes the blood that it would be bolstered by beets.

[bharminder]

Contrary to my last post, white carrot like daikons are not
as lacking a flavor as I thought. Though they are less spicy
than the common red radish, they still have a hint of spicy,
which may be overpowering for some.



Parsnips, have a minty, parsley, flavor to them.
They are crunchy and juicy. Thumbs up.


Purple top turnips are very bitter.
I don't like it.