I live and work in the American Midwest, where patient’s frequently reply with “Meat and mashed potatoes” when asked about their dietary habits. And I get it, as we get older we begin to relish ease, comfort and the familiarity of a routine more. It’s also easy, and perhaps cheaper, to stock up on the same food items from the grocery store. Factor in lack of cooking skills and time, that furher exacerbates the lack of dietary variety and nutrient gap.
Multiple colors in foods come with distinct health benefits. A 2022 review article out of Australia looked the benefits of consumption of such natural colors on the basis of their associated phytochemicals – such as Lycopene (Red), Alpha-carotene (Yellow), Beta-carotene(Orange), Flavones (White), etc. – and made some notable observations:
“In 2017, poor Fruits and Vegetable intake was responsible for 3.9 million deaths and was among the top dietary risk factors affecting disability-adjusted life years worldwide”
“Population-based data have shown that the diets of eight out of ten American adults fall short in every color of phytonutrient (i.e., have a phytonutrient gap)”
Color-associated variety in Fruits and Vegetables may confer additional health benefits beyond total intake of Fruits and Vegetables
The last bit above was fascinating me – variety over quantity had extra benefits ! The same study also created a detailed list of eveidence-based health benefits specific to each color which I converted into an Infographic posted at the bottom of this post.
So why do I advocate for eating 10 colors a day ?
- Since there are only so many colors in meat and potato diet, a goal of eating 10-colors daily is a sneaky way to automatically increase intake of plant-based foods and close the “Phytonutrient gap”
- Automatically increases your intake of micronutrients like minerals, vitamins and bioactive phytonutrients
- Automatically Improves your intake of fiber and related benefits (Lower Glucose spikes, Cholesterol absorption and Constipation)
- Automatically increases protection against age-related disease that many people take spendy supplements for – cancer, infections, cardiovascular disease, strokes.
- 10 is a definite, tangible goal than “Eat more fruits and veggies, ok?”
- 10 is also more prescriptive sounding while giving people the freedom on how they want to construct their 10 colors for the day.
This is why “Eat a Rainbow” is a standard advice from Nutritionists – So, how many colors did you eat today ?
[…] 10 colors of food items to eat daily – Why ? […]