Eat your colours - cyanide pink/purples

Perhaps the most important colour to get into our diet is the colour spectrum resulting from the anthocyanins.

Anthocyanin pigments are responsible for the red, purple, and blue colors of many fruits, vegetables, cereal grains, and flowers, and have been useful in the management and treatment of a very wide range of diseases including cancer. They appear red when the plant is acid, and turn through purple to blue when the plant is less acid.

For a wealth of information on the health benefits of eating your purples, check out Linus Pauling and G Edward Griffin. 

You will find high anthocyanin levels in the following foods. More and more purple foods are coming back onto the market.  The purple you see in some broccoli, and the purple in purple carrots, are anthocyanins. Foods with very high levels of anthocyanins can have the bitter almond taste.

Food source	Anthocyanin content in mg per 100 g
açaí	320
blackcurrant	190-270
chokeberry	1,480
eggplant (peel)	750
orange	~200
Marion blackberry	317
black raspberry	589
raspberry	365
wild blueberry	558
cherry	350-400
redcurrant	80-420
red grape	888
red wine	24-35
purple corn	1,642