We’d been told again and again to eat our vegetables and fruits – but recently we’re also being told to eat different colors! Does it really matter? What difference does it make if I eat only red and greens as opposed to red, green, orange and yellow foods?
Apparently a lot.
Tom Venuto explains below.
What Color Is Your Diet?
By Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT
http://www.burnfatgainmuscle.info
QUESTION:
Dear Tom,
I’ve seen quite a few diet books lately that are based on the color of the foods you eat, including the rainbow diet, the color diet and the “color code” (sounds like the Da Vinci code, LOL!) Anyway, I’ve been reading your newsletters for a long time and I know how you feel about diet pills, books and gimmicks and I was wondering what you thought about these programs. Is it just another gimmick?
ANSWER:
Food Color indicates different nutrient composition
Based on the clever titles, it might be tempting to dismiss these programs as gimmicks, and in fact when your weekly menus are literally “color coded,” it might seem that the diet book authors are just scrambling for a new hook or premise on which to base an entire eating program.
I have not read any of those books you mentioned yet, so I can’t comment on any of them specifically. However, as “gimmicky” as eating from every color in the rainbow may sound at first, there is some very legitimate and scientific evidence that this is a great idea.
We are often given the advice to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables (which have a variety of different colors). Good advice of course; even common sense would tell us that. However, “eat a lot of fruits and vegetables”is vague advice because it could mean eating only apples and broccoli (red and green), and nothing else, but eating “a lot” of them. To take that advice to the next level, a better recommendation would be to eat a WIDE VARIETY of fruits and vegetables (not just “a lot”).
Even “wide variety” is not really defined. What is a wide variety? Did you know that there are hundreds of different types of fruits and veggies? To make an even greater distinction, you could begin to sort your fruits and vegetables by color and eat a wide variety every day (at least 5 to 9 servings) and an even wider variety spread over the span of each week.
Why would you go to all the trouble? Well, each various food color is indicative of the phytonutrients and other healthful nutritional compounds found within these foods. According to the textbook Sports & Exercise Nutrition by Katch, Katch & McArdle), over 4000 phytochemicals have been identified, and 150 of them have been studied in detail.
By definition, phytonutrients (also called phytochemicals) are naturally occurring, health promoting compounds found in the plant kingdom. There has been much research on the functional properties of these compounds, proving that they play important and diverse roles in maintaining your health and protecting you from disease.
Foods such as tomatoes (red), carrots (orange), broccoli (green), blueberries (blue) all contain important phytochemicals that play specific roles in health and disease prevention. Onions, whole grains, herbs, spices and other foods also contain their own special types of protective phytochemicals.
Here are some of the phytochemicals and naturally health-promoting compounds and the foods they correspond to:
FLAVONOIDS (quercitin, kaempferol, myricetin, catechins)
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Berries
- Citrus fruits
- Onions
- Purple grapes
- Tea
CAROTENOIDS (luten, lycopene, zeaxanthin, a-carotene, b-carotene)
- Carrots
- Tomatoes
- Cantaloupe Apricots
GLUCOSINOLATES (glucobrassicin, isothiocyanates, indoles)
- Cruciferous vegetables
- Broccoli
- Brussel sprouts
- Cabbage
SULFIDES (allium compounds, dithiolthiones)
- Onions
- Garlic
- Leeks
- scallions
Each of these compounds has a health promoting role in the body ranging from antioxidant activity to cancer protection. There is much more going on here than just building muscle and shedding body fat. Eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and other natural foods has major health and quality of life implications.
It’s great news to know how much control we can take over our health and physical fitness simply with proper food choices (and proper exercise).
The only thing about these discoveries that saddens and disappoints me is that it seems each time our scientists discover something, such as lycopene in tomatoes for example, someone wants to put it in a bottle and sell it to us. (Why not just go to the source and eat the tomatoes???)
I believe in an intelligent creator, and I believe that the creator of our bodies and this universe we live in, knew exactly what he was doing when he created the marvelous diversity of plants and animals that comprise our food supply. Although it may be prudent in this modern industrial age to take a multi vitamin/mineral supplement and maybe an essential fatty acid supplement for “nutritional insurance,” everything you need can be found in your food.
If you think about what the discovery of all these naturally occurring compounds really means, you will have to agree that food truly is the most powerful drug. Combine that with recent discoveries in physiology and psychoneoruoimmunology proving that our bodies are their own self-regulating natural pharmacies, and you also have to agree that the natural way is the best way.
In any case, it’s definitely not enough to think only in terms of calories and macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and fats). Energy needs and macronutrient needs are important, but also think about your nutrition in terms of a wide variety of natural foods, and that includes a wide variety of colors.
For more information about the all natural way to fat loss and better health, read about the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program at www.burnfatgainmuscle.info
Train hard and expect success,
Tom Venuto,
Fat loss coach
www.burnfatgainmuscle.info
Tom Venuto
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, independent nutrition researcher, freelance writer, and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book) which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models.
If you’re interested in learning even more secrets of bodybuilders and fitness models, visit the Burn The Fat website at: www.burnfatgainmuscle.info
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