“Edible Colors” is a board book featuring real photographs of fruits and vegetables organized by color. All of the beautiful produce was grown by the author, Jennifer Vogel Bass.
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Full Review of “Edible Colors” by Jennifer Vogel Bass
Our baby loves this book. Sometimes he takes it out and “picture walks” – flips through the pages himself. But, more often, he has us read it to him over and over.
Sometimes I see how fast I can point to and say what each food is, sometimes I read off the actual variety names like, “Adirondack red potato,” and sometimes I ask him to point to whichever one looks tasty, and then I tell him what it is.
I recently found a purple Graffiti cauliflower at the farmer’s market, and I probably wouldn’t have noticed it or thought to buy it except for seeing it so many times in “Edible Colors.”
That night I sautéed some as a side, and as usual with broccoli or cauliflower, our 18-month-old refused it. So, I brought “Edible Colors” over and pointed out the purple cauliflower, and he ended up eating all of his, and then finagling several pieces from my own plate!
Update: Now over 2 years old, our kid is more interested in narrative books and vehicles, but he still takes “Edible Colors” out to picture walk. And, sometimes he’ll point to different fruits and vegetables and ask “wha dis?,” wanting to know the names.
Is Edible Colors Vegan-Friendly?
Yes! The book only depicts fruits and vegetables, and makes them pretty enticing. I would especially recommend this book to a vegan family, but frankly, to anyone wanting their kids or even themselves to get more interested in eating fruits and veggies.
Since reading it, I’ve added several vegetables to my “to-try” list including Islander bell pepper and Buddha’s Hand citron. I didn’t even have a “new vegetables to try” list before this book.
Anti-speciesist Reading
I did not detect any speciesism here.
Diversity in Fruit and Vegetable Varieties
One thing I love about “Edible Colors,” is how the selection of fruits and vegetables varies from what you’d see at a typical American grocery store. I imagine the selection may be partly determined by what the author can grow where she lives in the Northeast United States, but her selection is certainly more diverse than any grocery store I’ve been to.
You’d never know from this book that bananas are usually yellow, and carrots are usually orange. There’s no weight given to one variety over another. Carrots are simply orange, red, yellow, and white in this book.
Almost all of America eats the same kind of yellow Cavendish banana, and the same kind of red raspberries,etc. and these dominating fruits often come from large producers known for slave labor and worker exploitation.
So, I relish the hint of subversiveness in presenting other varieties on equal footing. For example, Red Dacca bananas, which are popular in Central America and Southeast Asia among other places, are shown in the red section.
It has crossed my mind that some day my son might get a quiz question wrong when asked what color is asparagus (Purple Passion asparagus) or cucumber (Boothby’s Blonde cucmber), but I think he’ll be the richer for it.
“Edible Colors” is suitable for young babies thanks to the pretty pictures and colors, but there’s a lot of material to work with as you get older. You can talk about the stripes on the “Green Zebra tomato,” and for something really advanced, try explaining the meaning behind the name, “Mortgage Lifter tomato.”
My one gripe with this book is that I feel shortchanged on orange-colored fruits and vegetables. Because of the way the book is structured, jumping off from a single orange carrot, you don’t get the same two page orange spread like you do the other colors. But I still think the book is fantastic!
Edible Colors by Jennifer Vogel-Bass
Vegan rating: A
Anti-speciesist rating: A
Overall rating: A
Age Recommendation: 0+
Order “Edible Colors” from Bookshop.org.
Order “Edible Colors” from Amazon.