If this is a new crown of rhubarb in its first growing year, you should not crop from it this year, although you could chance less than third of sticks if it grows well. This is to allow the crown to enlarge and grow, which it won't do if you crop from it.

Next year, you can crop whenever the stems are big enough, doesn't matter how red or not they are - some varieties only produce young red stems, greening as they age, others have reddish green stems, some are really quite green.

The leaves, as you say, are toxic and should not be consumed, but are perfectly safe and a useful addition to the compost heap.

Thanks again bamboo.

Somebody said last week that if you tear them into pieces and put round susceptible plants they deter slugs. I am trying it out but as its too early for slugs yet I can't tell you if it works!
When it is mature enough to crop don't overdo it or it will seriously weaken the plant.
And to use less sugar when cooking it add about half what you'd expect, cook in the microwave with a drop of twp of water and then stir in a pinch or two of bicarbonate of soda to kill the surplus acid. It froths us alarmingly but it works. Never been able to work out what the product of the reaction is but we are still alive...Been doing it for years!

Thanks for the tip about the cooking bit stera - stewed some tonight but think I overdid it ; they went a bit mushy.

Happens in the microwave because of the uneven heating. I do it that way because I usually use it in crumbles when mushy doesn't matter! Try doing it in a saucepan then and stir the bicarb in very gently at the end.

Actually the surest way of keeping it whole is to do it in the oven.

Steragram - its the bicarb neutralizing the oxalic acid in the rhubarb - it does fizz as it does it...

Yes but - what I couldn't find out is what the products of the reaction are. You would guess sodium oxalate, except that isn't that what's present in the rhubarb to start with?
Anyway as I said we are still alive!

I wondered more whether it destroyed any nutrients in the rhubarb, the way it does when used to keep greens green as you cook them.

On the subject of cooking rhubarb,I remember as a kid all we used to do was eat it raw dipped in lots of sugar - no wonder I'm walking about now with a mouthful of plastic!

Nutrients - well I guess it doesn't matter much as we eat lots of other good things...Out of interest I just put Rhubarb Nutrients into Google - wow, I'd no idea it contained so many good things - the bicarb can't possible react with all of them!

Oh yes Davros, we used to do that too - brings back memories!

Sadly, Steragram, many of the good things in rhubarb are not bio available, meaning they're not in a form our bodies can deal with...

Oh well, nothing's perfect....at least it tastes nice.