One piece of dieting advice that I especially like – because it’s fun and easy – is to eat fruits and vegetables of all colors of the spectrum. This definitely makes for interesting looking salads and colorful plates, but what’s the reasoning behind it? Why complicate the five-a-day target by saying that those five should be different colors?
Different Fruit and Veg Colors
Think for a moment about the different colors that fruits and vegetables can be. How many can you come up with? Can you really get a rainbow? I managed
- Red (tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, cherries)
- Orange (carrots, oranges, sweet peppers)
- Yellow (sweet peppers, sweetcorn, lemons)
- Green (lettuce, cucumber, courgette, celery, spinach, kale, broccoli, cabbage, sprouts, rocket, kiwi fruit…)
- Blue and purple (blueberries, aubergine, purple broccoli)
- White (onions, garlic, leeks, pears, green grapes)
(There’s a complete chart of fruits and vegetables categorized into different colors at Color Wheel of Fruits and Vegetables.)
So it’s definitely possible to get a bright and varied salad or fruit platter on the table. But what do all the colors mean in nutritional terms?
Nutrients in Different Colored Fruit and Veg
Each color is an indication of a key nutrients being present in the fruit or vegetable. I’m covering the main ones here – there are also other minerals and vitamins present in some of these colored fruits and vegetables, though in smaller quantities.
Red fruits and vegetables contain lycopene, which is an antioxidant thought to reduce the risk of cancer. (This is why tomatoes are often classed as a “superfood”!)
Orange and yellow fruits and vegetables also contain lycopene, in addition to beta-carotene (which is turned to vitamin A in the body) flavonoids (another type of antioxidant) potassium (an essential mineral), and vitamin C.
Green fruits and vegetables contain essential minerals such as calcium and folate. They also include vitamin C and beta-carotene (which is turned to vitamin A in the body).
Blue and purple fruits and vegetables contain anthocyanin – another type of flavonoid. They are also rich in vitamin C, fiber and lutein (an antioxidant).
White fruits and vegetables contain allicin, which may help your body to lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and fight off infections more easily. Polyphenols occur in pears and green grapes and can reduce the risk of certain cancers.
What Colors Are You Missing?
The list of nutrients, minerals and vitamins can be a bit overwhelming – there’s obviously a lot of good stuff in fruits and vegetables, but it’s hard to know exactly which we need. For a balanced diet, it’s best to eat some of every single color.
Are you missing any colors from your diet? What fruits or vegetables could you eat to complete your healthy rainbow? Who knows – you might even find a new favorite food!
What a great way to gauge what you are missing in your diet.
The more colors the more healthy we are … great post… More people need to be aware of this of diet recipes….and health recipes..
Andy
http://www.recipebuddys.com
Great Post! Colorful and delicious
Another great post on this blog. Your plate should be as colorful as possible to live healthy. It not only gives you a better body but also decreases diabetes risk.
This guy has really taken the rainbow plate to heart! Looks tasty too!
http://jba2008-30meals.blogspot.com/2008/10/day-3-taste-rainbow.html
It’s all brown..a combo of whole wheat fibers and just good ol’ plain flat-out POVERTY@!!
Yes, I realize I have internet but it’s a neccesity for both my Husband’s job and research on my 4 year old’s condition.
Every day, I eat all of those colors except maybe yellow. But I do eat orange veggies, so I guess I’m still covered for the vitamin A content.
I think a program of eating based on colour is a really simple and effective one. Different coloured veggies can be so beneficial to your health.
Cookie Monster now says, “Eat Your Colors!”. I love it when my kids play this game on pbs kids.
And we love seeing our colorful salads and dinner plates, too!
Your blog is very good and I will always learn from it .
Hey, this is a fabulous post. I actually wrote in my book, Mind over Fatter, that we need to eat a diet from all the colors of the rainbow. Makes perfect sense to me. Nature knows what to produce, it’s only when we let food manufacturers take over that we have to add colorants and nutrients. But nature doesn’t know anything about fortification – it just gives us all it’s got. It doesn’t know any anything about preservatives – it knows that the fresher we eat our produce the better.