Its use as a vegetable started long before recorded history. The roots are eaten raw or cooked. In good varieties, the flesh is snow white. The leaves can be eaten as a vegetable. In western countries, they are used as a salad where peeling deprives them of most of the enzymes responsible for the production of mustard oil and therefore removes the hot taste.
Radishes have no marked nutritive values but are highly relished for their pungent taste.
Homepage Last modified on Tuesday, 14th May 1996.