Pat_Health&Wellness Tools

How I love to see a meal plate or buffet with naturally colored foods! Hmm, yummy! yummy!!.

Nature has provided us with colorful foods with nutritional and healing powers. All we have to do is identify these foods and incorporate them in our meal( all meals; breakfast, lunch, diner and snacks) daily in order to harness their benefits.

Food supplements are good to address nutritional deficiencies. However, the greatest way to avoid such deficiencies in the first place is to consume these nutrients from their natural sources. Here, I will be focusing mainly on the green, orange and red colored foods and how they benefit us health-wise.

1. The Green Colored Foods:  These are mainly green leafy vegetables and some non leafy vegetables such as broccoli, cucumbers, garden eggs, and any edible vegetables as found in your locality. They are generally great sources of vitamins and minerals that the body needs for optimal functioning. Your food plate can contain 40-50% of these green colored foods daily.

2. The Orange Colored Foods: These are mainly in the form of fruits such as the orange citrus species and vegetable/fruit like carrots and any other edible orange colored fruits found in your locality  They are  a great source of Vitamin C, good for your teeth to prevent scurvy and Vitamin A, rich in Beta carotene which is known to be good for eye health. They have antioxidant properties that help fight off toxic or free radicals or substances in our body – they act like silent soldiers fighting on behalf of the body. These foods can be 15 – 20% of your meal daily. Check out and get a copy of my homemade carrot juice drink on the “Food Choices vs Health &Wellness ” page of my website.

3. The Red Colored Foods: These  are also mainly fruits/vegetables such as cherries, tomatoes, bell peppers, beetroots and other red colored fruits/vegetables available in your locality. These like the orange colored foods are good sources of  vitamins. They have also been reported to support heart health and as they are also rich sources of antioxidants and bioactive compounds, can help protect against cancer. They also have anti-inflammatory properties and some school of thoughts believe  they help reduce stress and improve sleep. May be a good idea to incorporate about 5-10% of this in your meals daily.

As you can see, the more colorful your food, the healthier they seem to be. So you may want to make an effort to build and design these colorful foods in every plate of food for yourself and your family.

Please share a colorfully designed plate of meal you have prepared before or after you read this blog in the comment section. Share pictures if possible!

Cheers and live healthy daily.

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