**3. Conclusions**

Root vegetables with intense and uncommon colors are very important in the human diet, not only because they increase the overall intake of health-promoting compounds, but also because they diversify the daily diet in terms of color, flavor, and chemical composition, which imparts distinct functional effects on the human body. The inclusion of such root vegetables either raw in fresh salads or in cooked dishes may increase palatability and appeal for healthier food products, although proper marketing is always an issue since consumers are usually reluctant to introduce new flavors and unconventional products that break the mold. Nevertheless, the current trends in the food and beverage market and the increased public demand for substituting synthetic compounds with natural alternatives could boost the establishment of these species and help the crossing over from niche products to widely accepted ones with diverse uses in the food industry. Further research is also needed in order to (i) identify those correlations and mechanisms of action responsible for the antioxidant properties and health effects of the pigmented vegetables, (ii) evaluate agronomic practices that will increase the bioactive capacity of the final products through the improved pigmentation, (iii) study post-harvest and processing treatments that will make these compounds less prone to degradation and easier to use in the design of functional foods and as natural coloring agents, and (iv) define efficient extraction protocols that will allow high yields and high stability and quality of coloring agents extracted from plant sources. Finally, increasing the knowledge about the chemical composition and the health effects of individual compounds of colored root vegetables could be further exploited through breeding programs for the production of elite genotypes with increased content of coloring compounds and tailor-made health effects, as well as through plant in vitro strategies for the production of specific natural secondary metabolites and further use in the pharmaceutical and the food and beverage industries.

**Author Contributions:** All authors contributed equally to the writing of the original draft and final draft preparation.

**Funding:** This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hatch Appropriations under Project #PEN04723 and Accession #1020664; The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) and FEDER under Program PT2020 for financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2019), to FEDER-Interreg España-Portugal programme for financial support through the project 0377\_Iberphenol\_6\_E and TRANSCoLAB 0612\_TRANS\_CO\_LAB\_2\_P, and to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Regional Operational Program North 2020, within the scope of project Mobilizador Norte-01-0247-FEDER-024479: Valor Natural®.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
