You know how when you were a kid your mom told you to eat your vegetables? Or maybe your parents didn’t but guess what, we all need to eat our vegetables. And the more the merrier. Remember, we aren’t concerned with how many calories, as much as we are with are those calories worth anything? Am I eating tons of calories filled with vitamins and minerals I need, or am I eating a box of cookies? All the calories of fruit and vegetables have tons of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and fiber. Our body needs all of those for energy, to heal, to reduce stress and improve our psychological well-being.

Picture a plate full with colorful vegetables or a beautiful fruit platter. Isn’t it exciting and enticing? Turns out that the more colors we have in our food, the more nutrients we’re eating. It’s nature’s way of tempting us to diversify so we can prevent disease, strengthen our cells, and give our body everything we need to be healthy and feel good.  Eating all the colors of the rainbow is a creative way to think about getting all the different nutrients that different colored fruits and vegetables have to offer.

Let’s Get Colorful

Here are some examples of some of my favorite different colored fruits and vegetables. Write in the comments if you have more ideas for the different colors we can shop for to diversify our plate:

• Red:
  • Vegetables: tomatoes, red peppers, radishes, chili pepper, red leaf lettuce
  • Fruit: watermelon, strawberries, cranberries, pomegranate, cherries
• Orange:
  • Vegetables: sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, butternut and acorn squashes 
  • Fruit: oranges, papaya, mango, apricots, persimmons, cantaloupe
• Yellow:
  • Vegetables:  corn, yellow squash, yellow onion, garlic, turmeric, ginger, potatoes
  • Fruit: bananas, pineapple, lemons, golden kiwi, grapefruit, yellow apples
• Green:
  • Vegetables: broccoli, green cabbage, spinach, string beans, collard greens
  • Fruit: green apples, green kiwi, avocado, green grapes, limes, honeydew
• Blue/ Purple:
  • Vegetables: eggplant, beets, purple onion, purple cabbage, purple yams, olives
  • Fruit: blueberries, concord grapes, acai, blackberries, plums, figs

There are so many more, and you could really get creative and have fun with this. 

Don’t get overwhelmed, maybe just add one more color, or one more salad or fruit shake to your day. Let me know what you’ve added, I’d love to hear. To learn more about eating healthy, living well, feeling good, and being happy, contact me, and keep visiting.