The Importance of a Colorful Diet - WinnMed (2024)

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The Importance of a Colorful Diet - WinnMed? ›

Pack your plate full of color and boost your daily intake of important, and often overlooked, nutrients. Colorful foods, which are generally fruits and vegetables, contain many of the vitamins and antioxidants we need – with few calories.

Different-colored plants are linked to higher levels of specific nutrients and health benefits. While eating more vegetables and fruit is always a good idea, focusing on eating a variety of colors will increase your intake of different nutrients to benefit various areas of your health.

A rainbow diet is one which contains fruits and vegetables in different colours like red, yellow, purple, green, orange et al. The idea of this diet is to minimise carbs, gluten, fat or meat which could be burdening your system and making it ill over a period of time.

Eating a variety of colors each day, assures that you don't miss out on important nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. James Roche adds, “Antioxidants are primarily responsible for reducing inflammation and these mainly come from vitamins A, C and E.

Fruits and vegetables get their coloration from phytochemicals, natural bioactive compounds which, in addition to giving many fruits and veggies their eye-catching hues, also promote good health. In fact, the most vibrantly colored fruits and vegetables are the richest in vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants.

Colour is one of the most important sensory aspects of food and drink. As well as indicating its likely freshness and flavour, it can also influence consumer choice and enjoyment of a product.

We are also influenced by the visual cue of color when it comes to our perception of how something will taste. Colorful food can influence our brain to create an expectation that specific colors will taste a certain way. For example, the more vibrantly colored a food is, the more intense we expect its flavor to be.

If you don't 'eat the rainbow,' you could be missing out on key nutrients your body needs, according to a nutritionist. Eating the same foods every day can lead to nutritional deficiencies. We should aim to "eat the rainbow," registered nutritionist Jenny Rosborough told Insider.

Health outcomes associated with multiple color pigments were body weight, lipid profile, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, mortality, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Findings show that color-associated FV variety may confer additional benefits to population health beyond total FV intake.

Even at a very young age, kids can easily grasp the concept of eating a rainbow. Eating colorful fruits and vegetables help protect kids from cancer and other chronic diseases. They're nutritious and delicious. The color makes all the difference.

What is the color diet? ›

The 7-Day Color Diet is a clever way to get you to eat fruits and vegetables. It uses the principles from the National Cancer Institute's 2002 "Savor the Spectrum" program, which promotes healthy eating by suggesting that people eat five to nine servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

Each color provides various health benefits and no one color is superior to another, which is why a balance of all colors is most important. Getting the most phytonutrients also means eating the colorful skins, the richest sources of the phytonutrients, along with the paler flesh.

Properties: High in carotenoids, such as alpha-carotene and beta-carotene. Health benefits: Beta-carotene gives yellow and orange fruits and vegetables their colour and is converted to vitamin A in the body, where it helps us make hormones and keeps our eyes healthy.

Colorful foods, which are generally fruits and vegetables, contain many of the vitamins and antioxidants we need – with few calories. Along with maintaining good health, the nutrients in vegetables and fruits work together to protect against cancer, heart disease, vision loss, hypertension and other diseases.

Because different foods provide different types and amounts of key nutrients, it is important to choose a variety of foods from within each food group. As a bonus, choosing a variety of foods will help to make your meals interesting, so that you don't get bored with your diet.

1 – Eating different foods helps you meet nutrient needs.

From a macronutrient perspective, animal foods and legumes have much more protein than most grains, fruits, and vegetables. Mixing up the foods that you eat is therefore key to getting enough of all of the essential nutrients.

"These colors signal the presence of diverse phytochemicals and phytonutrients." Phytochemicals and phytonutrients are beneficial substances produced by plants. People who eat diets rich in phytonutrients have lower rates of heart disease and cancer — the two leading causes of death in the United States.

Eating a variety of foods will help you get essential nutrients and, by doing so, you'll naturally embrace a broad colour palette. Fruits and vegetables are particularly colourful, so a rainbow plate can help you towards your 5-a-day. Plus, you're more likely to enjoy eating an attractive meal.