In this-fast paced world, where people have no time to think about their health, a simple dietary change can improve the overall nutritional value of your diet. Today, due to time constraints, people rely on processed food and tend to forget that food is not just required to fill the stomach, but to also make our body healthy and strong.
You probably heard that in planning your balanced diet, you should aim for a rainbow of colours to ensure you get a full spectrum of vital nutrients but interpreting it too literally may mean you miss out on essential nutrition.
Here are the seven colours you really need to eat and why
Whites White foods often gets cast as nutrient free, boring and bland. True, white flour, white bread, and white rice are starchy, not especially nutritious but it would be wrong to draw the same conclusion about other colourless edibles. Onion, leeks, garlic are perhaps the best examples. Garlic for instance, is an excellent natural antibiotic and antiseptic known to lower cholestrol. It is best eaten raw.
Reds : You can find them in tomatoes, watermelon, guava, red grape fruit, red apples, red cabbage. They reduce free radical damage, especially helpful to prevent prostate problems, and reduce the effects of sun damage on the skin.
Orange: Most of nature’s orange foods contain antioxidants called carotenoids of which betacarotene is the most renowned. Catrotenoids are converted by the body into vitamin A while betacorotene helps to further improve the presence of fat.
So always incorporate orange foods such as carrots, oranges, tangerines in your diet.
Yellows: You can find them in sweetcorn, honeydew melon, banana, egg yolks, papaya, turmeric, grape fruit. Not only are the fruits rich in vitamin C, they help to reduce the risk of developing cataracts, improve the health of the membranes and connective tissue. They help prevent heart disease by improving circulation, preventing inflammation.
Greens: Green leaves, herbs and cabbages are all rich in the pigment chlorophyll which builds blood and tissues and encourages the body’s cells to release accumulated toxins. Cooking chlorophyll weakens its potency. so it is best taking vegetables, raw. Also brocolli is rich in both minerals so is a perfectly balanced food ideal for healthy bones.
Browns: When it comes to cereals, browness is a reliable sign that a grain has not been refined or stripped of its outer bran layer or indeed its nutrientdense germ. In other words, that the grain is a whole grain. Whole grains offers up a nutritious parcel of fibre, protein, complex straches, B vitamin, minerls and antioxidants.
Purples : The pigments imparting purple colour to foods such as blueberries, black grapes, strawberries, cranberries, beetroots are known as anthocyanins which are known to demonstrate extremely powerful antioxidant properties that protects against heart disease by improving circulation and preventing blood clots
