Color Your World With Fruits and Vegetables

'Eat the rainbow' is advice that keeps getting better the more we learn

Plants gain their colors from pigments that offer certain protections. It turns out, those protective qualities can transfer to the people that eat them.MEDITERRANEAN/Getty Images

Eating a rainbow of colors every day is one of Dr. Bernard Jensen’s famous recommendations for keeping healthy. Every pigment provides specific protection for plants. Research shows that humans receive similar benefits from eating colorful vegetables and fruit.

Red

Red vegetables and fruit contain a variety of phytochemicals including lycopene. Foods rich in lycopene are known for their ability to fight heart disease and some cancers, such as prostate cancer. Lycopene-rich foods include watermelon, pink grapefruit, tomatoes, and tomato-based products (spaghetti sauce, tomato paste, tomato juice, and tomato soup), papaya, and guava. Use a small amount of fat, such as olive oil, when cooking tomato-based products to help the body absorb lycopene.

Find your daily dose of reds in red apples, cherries, red grapes, raspberries, watermelon, beets, strawberries, red cabbage, red onion, radishes, red peppers, rhubarb, tomatoes, chili peppers, and red potatoes.

Menu ideas:

• Tomato soup/gazpacho
• Roasted red pepper soup
• Whole grain pasta with tomato sauce
• Nachos with salsa

Orange and Yellow

Orange and yellow fruits and vegetables contain powerful antioxidants such as vitamin C in addition to the phytochemicals, carotenoids, and bioflavonoids. Deep orange vegetables and fruit contain beta-carotene, a disease-fighting antioxidant. Beta-carotene is believed to play a role in reducing the risk of cancer and heart disease, promoting good eyesight, boosting the immune system, and slowing the aging process.