VEGETABLES - World Food: Production and Use - page 154

own separate dish, they are also frequently mixed in other dishes and cooked with them.
This would be the case of cooking carrots with meat, for example.

4.11.5 World Production of Root Vegetables
The major producers of root vegetables are China, United States, Russian Federation,
Poland, Japan, India, Turkey, and Pakistan. These countries produce from 1.3 to 6 times
more root vegetables as do the rest of the countries in the world. China alone produces
41 percent of the world carrot production. The Russian Federation produces nearly
8 percent of the world's carrots, while the other top produces—the United States,
Poland, and Ukraine—produce about 3 percent of the world's production each. }},2

4.12 OTHER VEGETABLES

This group of vegetables is highly variable and hard to classify into any one type of
growth or edible portion used. Artichoke looks like a head but is made of individual
leaves, the fleshy part of which is eaten. Although broccoli, brussel sprouts, and cauli-
flower are all from the same family, they are all different in characteristics. The edible
portion of both broccoli (Fig. 4.26) and cauliflower is a flower head, however, broccoli
is green with discernable flower stems while cauliflower is white with no discernable
flower structures in the head. On the other hand, brussels sprouts look like tiny
cabbage heads growing on the stem of the plant. Most eggplant is dark purple

Figure 4.26. Broccoli plant showing head, edible portion, ready for harvest.

}} Calculated from FAOSTAT (http://faostat.fao.org) data for 2004 and 2005 on the basis of hectares
of carrots.