A Rainbowlicious Adventure!
Imagine you are walking through a jungle. Look around you, take in the smells and sights.
What do you see? Lots of beautiful colors, vegetation, fruits, a veritable rainbow of beauty and flavor.
Now, think about what you eat on a given day. Even if you are (or think you are) eating pretty healthy, I’ll take a stab that the palate is pretty brown and green, maybe a bit white.
Fruits and vegetables, even meats, come in a variety of colors. God’s design doesn’t just look pretty, it also serves to help identify vitamin properties contained inside. Fruits that have the most striking colors are also the richest in nutrients.
Red fruits have vitamins C and A, as well as antioxidants.
Orange and yellow have potassium, and help support eye health.
Green vegetables contain iron, vitamin K, and fiber that help support healthy blood and digestion.
Brown and white support heart health and cholesterol.
Blue and purple support urinary tract health, and supply antioxidants. Every color has a purpose.
We talked previously about using journaling for temporary awareness. To recap, journaling what you eat along with your workouts helps shed light on your actual habits. It is very easy when you don’t document anything to convince yourself that all is right in the kingdom. Journaling helps lay bare some of your defensive breakdowns.
During a week of tracking, I made an interesting discovery in my own diet. I was pretty good at eating green, and not good at eating literally any other color. For some reason, I even shunned fruit altogether. Probably something about being too sugary and high in calories (remember that disordered eating we talked about? Yeah, that was me too). I avoided anything but white and green. A fact that I honestly did not recognize until I put it down in a journal. The truth of the matter is that loads of people fall into the same boat: good at eating green, no good at eating other colors.
How boring would a just green rainbow be?
Other people eat loads of colors! Especially lots of orange and red! Sometimes even bright blue. I hate (not really) to be the bearer of bad news, but eating Skittles, Cheetos, Doritos, Takis, and whatever other unnaturally colored processed food you can get does not, in fact, count as eating the rainbow, no matter what the commercial says. A blue skittle will not benefit your health. Sorry. Actually, you know what? I’m not sorry. These foods so full of artificial junk are not helping you! In fact, there is research to suggest that the dyes they use in food may actually be harming your health. They are cheap, addictive, and may also be breaking you. Now, I am not going to go making a law that you can never eat those kinds of things. However, making them a mainstay of your diet is straight up bad. Fact.
If you want the benefits of eating the rainbow, you need to eat them as they naturally occur in nature.
Have a banana! Eat a whole orange (not just the juice! If you want to know why, talk to me about nutrition coaching).
If you are worried about cost, I understand. It is a ludicrous fact in our society that eating crap is often cheaper than eating well. But let me ask you this: do you want to invest in good food now, or medical bills later? There are also lots of options that are economical. Oranges, bananas, berries to name a few. Eat red and yellow peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. You can eat well without breaking the bank.
Want some extra credit? Plant a garden and grow some of your own. I will tell you, it is very rewarding to eat food you grew yourself.
The rainbow isn’t just pretty to look at; it's also tasty to eat, and good for your body.
Taste the real rainbow!
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