Utah gets state vegetable
The state legislature of Utah named the Spanish sweet onion Utah’s state vegetable and the sugar beet its historic state vegetable.
Senate Bill 136, according to the Utah Senate’s Web site, added the two vegetables to the list of state symbols after some dispute over which vegetable should be named Utah’s state vegetable. Some legislatures favored the onion while others supported the sugar beet. A compromise was then found by designating one the state vegetable and the other the historic state vegetable.
The bill was passed March 10, 2002.
Dan Drost, professor of plants, soils and biometeorology, thinks the legislature made the right decision picking the onion as the state vegetable.
“If the Legislature really needed to spend time selecting official state vegetables at least they chose one with some really good health benefits,” Drost said. “Sugar beets were important here once, but we don’t grow them much anymore and sugar beets have no redeeming nutritive value. Choosing the sugar beet over the onion would just highlight the fact that people are enamored with sugar and look where that has gotten us.”
Drost said last year commercially grown onions in Utah were worth about $7 million and were grown on about 2,500 acres mainly in Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties.
The nutritional value of onions is another benefit of the state vegetable, Drost said. Onions thin blood, are good for the heart and may also lower cholesterol and have anti-cancer properties. According to the USDA, a medium-sized onion contains calcium, potassium, phosphorus and just 48 calories.
During the Olympics, entertainer Bill Cosby was in Salt Lake City at the ZCMI mall with a traveling Jell-O exhibit. Lt. Gov. Olene Walker said last year the Legislature named Jell-O the official snack food of Utah and mentioned the possibility of the onion being named the state vegetable and joked about the possibility of combining the two in a recipe.
“Onions and Jell-O – I don’t know if it’s going to be good,” Cosby said. “That’s pushing it. I think whoever is trying to move the onions, whatever politician is involved with the onion farmers – we should have another meeting. Maybe they should go to the dairy industry and have chocolate onion-flavored milk …”