Happy Foody

Rainbow In My Bowl

May 11, 2008 at 7:09 am 8 comments

I love color. I have colorful clothes. A colorful home. Colorful things in my hair. A very colorful daughter. Color just makes me really happy. 🙂 It’s no wonder I LOVE eating raw foods so much…they just add to the happiness. If you’re wondering how to be really healthy and live for a long time…just try to eat every color of the rainbow, every day. In this particular salad, I had:

• mixed greens
• spinach
• red, yellow, and orange peppers
• grated beets (my new favorite…thanks Em!)
• heirloom grape tomatoes (red, yellow, and green)
• sprout mix (sunflower seed, pea, lentil, alfalfa)
• cucumbers
• red/purple cabbage (oh how I LOVE the crunchiness!)

Yum! Chopping up the ingredients for a huge salad is very meditative for me…and eating it brings great delight. I eat at least one large salad a day, and I look forward to it with anticipation without ever getting tired of it.

Here is some interesting info from Prevention Magazine describing the benefits of each color. This is what they have to say:

The more colorful your diet, the more antioxidants you get. These compounds reduce overall cellular damage and prevent the hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart disease, stroke, even memory loss. “Every hue — green, yellow, orange, red, purple, and even white — signifies a different class of nutrients, each of which offers a unique benefit…”

1. Yellow/Orange
Sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, mango, corn, and melon all contain a variety of carotenoids, which reduce the risk of developing cancer.

2. Green
Vegetables such as spinach and broccoli are high in lutein, which keeps your vision sharp and clear.

3. Blue/Purple
Blueberries and blackberries are chock-full of anthocyanins, which prevent tumors from forming and suppress their growth.

4. Red
Tomatoes and watermelon are loaded with lycopene, which may protect against cancer and heart disease.

5. White
Cauliflower offers the same cancer-fighting benefits as broccoli, its cruciferous cousin, and potatoes are a good source of vitamin C.

Even within this list, I believe that dark leafy GREENS (kale, spinach, collards, etc) are the most important thing to focus on. If you’re not taking in lots of greens each day…start working to make a change. Add one green salad to lunch or supper. Add a green smoothie…just get your greens wherever you can! Eating more greens will stop cravings dead in their tracks…and will actually cause you to want MORE greens. The more greens you eat, the more you want! Check out Green For Life for more information on why your body can’t go without the greens.

*For those of you who love a great bargain…I found my this amazing orange bamboo bowl at a Goodwill near San Diego for $9.00! The tags were still on it…and this exact bowl retails for $40+! Woo hoo! When Matt and I turned the corner into housewares that day, we GASPED out loud and grabbed it as fast as we could. Because…and you’ll never believe this…I’ve really been wanting a big salad bowl, and he was going to buy me the smaller one just like this at Whole Foods for $25 for Mother’s Day. What a sweet blessing. Yay!

Entry filed under: Fruits and Veggies, Raw.