Eating The Rainbow!
‘Eating by colour’ or ‘eating the rainbow’ is a simple but powerful concept of including a wide range of colourful vegetables and fruits in our daily food.
They provide us with a wide range of invaluable vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients and fibre.
They also provide satiety at the cost of very few calories, thus keeping our food low calorie and help us lose weight and stay slim.
Phytonutrients are natural plant compounds that give plant foods their distinctive colour, aroma, and flavour, and offer us wide protective health effects.
Here are some of the plant foods of various colour, the antioxidants and phytonutrients they provide and their health benefits.
*
Red foods like tomatoes, watermelon, red peppers, strawberries, cherries, beetroot are rich in lycopene and anthocyanin.
They protect our heart, blood vessels and prostate and also protect us from some cancers.
*
Orange and yellow foods like turmeric, carrots, oranges, pumpkin, mango and papaya are rich in beta-carotene, curcumin, lutein, zeaxanthin, flavonoids and Vitamin C.
They protect our eye health and vision, strengthen immunity and support skin health and collagen formation.
*
Green foods like all green leafy vegetables like spinach, fenugreek, green amaranth or chavlai, kale, broccoli, coriander, peas are rich in chlorophyll, indoles, isothiocyanates, lutein and folate.
They support bone, eye, liver and cardiovascular health and protect us from cell damage and certain cancers and detoxify our body.
*
Blue and purple foods like blueberries, black grapes, purple cabbage, Indian blackberry or jambhul, plums, eggplant or brinjal are rich in anthocyanin, resveratrol.
They support heart health and circulation, slow down aging and improve memory and brain function.
*
White and brown foods like garlic, onion, mushroom, cauliflower, oats, bananas, ginger are rich in allicin, flavonoids, selenium and lignan.
They lower cholesterol and blood pressure, strengthen immunity and have antibacterial and antiviral properties.
***
Overall health benefits of colourful foods:
They provide wide range of micronutrients and prevent their deficiency.
Different fibre in them improve gut health by nurturing different beneficial gut bacteria, help reduce cholesterol and blood sugar.
Wide ranging antioxidants neutralise different free radicals, prevent chronic diseases and boost immunity.
Improve metabolic health by helping manage weight and blood sugar better.
Help prevent chronic diseases by lowering inflammation and oxidative stress.
***
How to eat them:
Try to include four to five helpings of colourful food every day.
Eat a wide variety even in the same colour group to get widest variety of micronutrients.
Eating whole fruits without exposing cut fruits to air and light long and lightly cooking or steaming colourful vegetables preserves micronutrients in them.
Eat whole fruits, they are better than drinking even fresh home made fruit juices. Avoid packaged, commercial fruit juices.
Related articles
