Project: Eat a Rainbow

Blog family, I am starting a new project. It is no secret that healthy living is important to me whether it be exercise, nutrition or overall wellness. As a Health Promotions major, I should be practicing what I preach and this blog is my platform to do that. Sure, I enjoy a huge normal size piece of carrot cake once in a while, :)  but overall, my goal is to create healthy recipes or lighten up classic recipes and make them more healthy.  So here we go. 

Project: Eat a Rainbow

There has been a buzz about this for a long time now and I have seen several articles on this topic. It seems simple enough to do, but I’ll be the first to admit that it takes a little planning. You can’t just pull fresh blueberries out of your purse when you need a snack, but the payoff for smart shopping and meal planning is well worth it. Just look at these awesome benefits listed on eatingwell!

“Red/Pink:  Great source of lycopene, which may protect against prostate cancer as well as heart and lung disease. Tomatoes and watermelon are two sources.

Orange: It’s easy to remember carotenoids, the class of antioxidant found in this color: just think “carrot-enoids.” Fruit and vegetables, such as carrots, mangoes and sweet potatoes, store beta carotene, which the body turns into vitamin A.

Yellow/Green:  Get your lutein and zeaxanthin—two antioxidants linked with reducing the risk of cataracts and atherosclerosis—in honeydew, avocados and yellow corn. Many green cruciferous vegetables also contain indoles, another antioxidant, which help fight cancer.

Purple:  This color, common to summer treats like blackberries and eggplant, comes from a very powerful kind of phytonutrient: anthocyanidins, which may protect against heart disease by preventing inflammation. Since different foods contain different anthocyanidins, try to eat a range of purple and blue foods to benefit the most." 

~EatingWell.com

We all grew up learning the ROY G BIV acronym- Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. While there are several foods of several colors, I challenge anyone to actually fine a natural food that is indigo- and believe me, I’ve looked! So for my project, indigo and violet will be grouped together to form “purple.” 

So this is my project- to create healthy recipes with the colors rainbow from fresh fruits and vegetables.  I’m sure I will need ideas and inspiration along the way so your support would be fantastic! Not only will I try to eat all the colors in a day but my ultimate goal is to create some recipes with ALL the colors in ONE meal! I know; I have my work cut out for me! :)

 

Wish me luck!