Eat the rainbow for magical health!

10 out of 10 unicorns agree that eating rainbows is the key to health, and magic.

Ok, so unicorns can eat actual rainbows because they’re magic, but real humans can take some wisdom from unicorns - eating the rainbow is good for you!
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All joking aside, what does eating the rainbow really mean? It means eating foods of all different colours, especially the darkest coloured ones. For the most part, this refers to fruits and vegetables since they come in many vibrant colours. As humans, we need a wide array of nutrients, macro and micro, for our bodies to function well and remain healthy. Eating the rainbow is a great way to ensure we’re getting all of those different, and important, nutrients.

Choose foods of all different colours when creating your meals. Your plate doesn’t have to include every colour of the rainbow at every meal, aim to eat foods from each colour group throughout the week. Every whole food has it’s own unique set of nutrients. These are often denoted by colour.
For instance, we know that :

• most orange vegetables are an excellent source of vitamin A and antioxidants both needed for good eye health and protection from degenerative disease (like squash, sweet potato, cantaloupe)
• yellow or white fruits and vegetables are often a good source of potassium which helps to regulate blood pressure and of sulfur-containing compounds which help protect against cancer  (bananas, parsnips, cauliflower)
• green vegetables often contain iron, and minerals like calcium and magnesium important for energy and bone strength (kale, spinach, collards, broccoli)
• red fruits and vegetables have immune-supporting vitamin C and valuable antioxidants in their skins (think apples, red grapes, red peppers)

You get the idea!

Plus, the beauty of food is you don’t have to memorize the exact nutrient profile of every fruit and vegetable, you just have to eat a good variety of them. Not only is this way of eating more interesting to our tastebuds and our eyes, it also ensures we are getting a wide array of nutrients that will nourish our bodies. We are also getting the benefit of many different anti-oxidants that help to protect our cells from disease.

To underline the importance of eating a wide variety of foods, a study was recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine about a teenager in the UK who has gone blind and partially deaf because he ate only 2 or 3 foods for most of his growing life. The doctors who studied his case have attributed his afflictions to a degeneration in his body of the nerves to his eyes and ears because of malnutrition! This didn’t happen overnight, it took years to develop. Now, this is obviously an extreme case but it underscores the importance of being mindful about what we choose to eat. If we limit our choices to only a few foods, we are slowly doing damage to parts of our bodies which starve for the nutrients in the foods we NOT eating. This doesn’t become an obvious problem until a severe illness or issue like blindness becomes apparent. In North America, and the UK, citizens are blessed with the availability of nutritious food all year round. We just have to choose to eat it. Like I mentioned, it really is rather simple, eat a variety of foods of many different colours. Even if you are on a strict budget, you can make healthy choices by:

• Buying foods in season or frozen, they are often less expensive that way.
• Putting time aside each week to prepare food.
• Getting a new cookbook from the library and trying as many recipes as you can before it’s due back.

Challenge yourself to eat the rainbow - your body will repay you with (magical) good health!

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​Sources:
​whfoods.org
This is the study I mentioned:
https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/2749497/blindness-caused-junk-food-diet

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