Among a large variety of vegetables, you can often find many that grow inside the land. This makes them root vegetables.
As roots grow inside the soil, we often mistake all the underground plants as root vegetables.
One of the prominent root vegetables is an onion served as a significant ingredient in varieties of cuisines. But anyway, misconceptions about it may also prevail due to its underground cultivation.
As a result, you may hit with the question, is onion a root vegetable?
Onions aren’t rooted vegetables, nor are they stem that grow inside the ground. Instead, it is a particular type of modified stem known as the bulbs, which are different from the regular stems. This bulb, in the form of onions, store food and transfer them everywhere.
Today, we shall clear all your confusion regarding this topic.
Is onion a root vegetable?
No, they are not a root vegetable, but you may have been knowing as it is so since childhood. This is not at all surprising as the misconceptions regarding all other underground plants remain all the same.
That is to say; onions are not rooted vegetables only because that they grow underground. Instead, they are specialized bulb which indicates some modified stems but not like the regular one.
Onions contain hard and flat bases from where leaves and roots originate inside the soil. This is the same hard base that you throw away while cutting those onions.
This base is eligible to be considered as a stem where leaves are grown one by one.
What is a root vegetable?
Root vegetables are generally the source of storage of all the energies in a plant. This is because they are the organ which directly takes all the nutrients from soil inside them. As a result, food and water are stored in them, which are letters transferred into the rest of the parts of the plant.
Root vegetables are also known as the parts of that same plant that grow underground. But, for your ease of interpretation, botany has already divided the non-roots and the true roots.
So, despite applying the term root vegetables in every underground plant, they are not the true roots under all circumstances.
The roots of those plants that are directly edible can be defined as actual root vegetables.
Which are root vegetables?
Now, in identifying root vegetables, you don’t need to have a higher degree of it. The best and the simplest way to do it is just by preferring those plants which grow underground.
The parts of the plants that are edible are termed vegetables. If you find a plant but can’t find the edible portion out of it, the most possibility to find it out can be inside the soil.
When the edible portion of the plant is underground, you can call that portion of the plant a root vegetable. Now, you don’t need to get in that much detail while distinguishing between an average vegetable with a vegetable that grows by the root.
Some of the root vegetables are carrots, beets, onions, radishes, turnips, rutabagas, and many more. They don’t hesitate at all to sustain themselves inside the soil and regulate their growth.
Are onions true roots?
No, onions are not true roots. Instead, they are modified underground stems. This steam are called bulbs. Like potatoes remain in the form of tuber inside the soil, the same goes for onion which makes itself comfortable in bulbs.
The bulb is not defined as roots. Instead, they are based on an onion from which roots themselves grow more profound into the soil.
Vegetables like carrots can be termed as true roots as they remain in the pure form of sources under the ground.
Onions are not located deep inside the ground. They are only extended up to some particular region. The roots emitted from them only grow deeper into the soil. This no longer makes the onion as true roots.
Why should you not eat root vegetables?
It is not that you cannot eat root vegetables at all. But, you should be aware of their excess intake to avoid health hazards.
Root vegetables are the prime storage of food for the plants. And, the leading food of the plants is carbohydrates. So, as a result, they are so much loaded with this.
Again, root vegetables are mostly starch-based. When this starch enters your body, they are broken down into carbohydrates to supply energy to your body.
Excess in their amount is so much unhealthy for your body. When your body’s required energy is fulfilled from the carbohydrates, this compound only stores fat in your body.
Fats are something that is not at all needed for your body. Anything above a 15-20% body fat percentage is termed useless.
Too much fat can leave a negative impact on your body. This includes the increase in blood sugar level, increasing chance of heart attack and strokes, obesity, and so on.
What is the Best Season for Root Vegetables?
Weather is everything in cultivating your vegetables as most of them do not grow throughout the whole year. In the case of root vegetables, they are most likely to increase in winters.
Root vegetables are cold-weather plants that cannot tackle the hot temperature of all other seasons.
As a result, only some particular seasons become suitable for them to grow without exceptions, like a greenhouse or hydroponic systems.
The best result can seek out of them if they are planted in between July to August. Then, they will grow at a faster rate and will taste better as they can ever be!
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Conclusion
Now you know that onion is a modified stem that grows under the soil. Onion is one of the widely used vegetables come spices all over the world.
