Types of Vegetables You can group vegetables by color, flavor, or texture. Another easy way to group them is by the parts of the plant you eat. When you eat lettuce, you are munching leaves. You nibble flowers when you eat broccoli. Vegetables may be roots, bulbs, tubers, fruits, seeds, or stalks, too. Root Vegetables Roots grow underground and anchor the plant in the soil. Roots are a pathway for nutrients from the soil to get to the plant. Jicamas, rutabagas, and carrots are a few of the root vegetables we eat. Hard, smooth root vegetables are the best choice. Wrinkles mean the vegetables are old and dried out. Small root vegetables are the most tender (Figure 15.2). Root Vegetables Root Vegetables Root vegetables grow below the soil. Beets Carrots Daikons Jicamas Parsnips Radishes Rutabagas Salsify Sweet Potatoes Taro Roots Turnips Yuca Roots Left to right, top to bottom: Kovaleva_Ka/Shutterstock.com Nattika/Shutterstock.com asharkyu/Shutterstock.com yuda chen/Shutterstock.com Lepas/Shutterstock.com Ramon L. Farinos/Shutterstock.com Enlightened Media/Shutterstock.com Joseph J. Erdos/Shutterstock.com JIANG HONGYAN/Shutterstock.com sciencepics/Shutterstock.com Yellow Cat/Shutterstock.com Swapan Photography/Shutterstock.com COLOA Studio/Shutterstock.com Carrot vector: DRogatnev/Shutterstock.com Figure 15.2 Some root vegetables have more than one name. Find out some other names for yuca root. Which root vegetable is also known as “oyster plant”? Adventures in Food and Nutrition Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. 354