Eating Colours - your 'Rainbow Diet'

Want to stay younger?

Want to eat healthier and live longer?

Pineapple The people living on the Japanese island of Okinawa have the world's highest rate of life expectancy - an amazing 81.2 years - as well as very low ratios of diseases such as cancer and heart disease, especially amongst the island's centenarians of 100 years plus.

What is the secret of their success? One factor in their long and relatively healthy lives seems to be found in their diet, a rainbow coloured diet of naturally coloured fruits and vegetables, nuts, soya and tofu. Plants need water and nutrients to germinate and start to grow, but seedlings soon whither and die without LIGHT.

Apple Half Full spectrum light - which contains all the colours of the rainbow, affects the cells and tissues of each one of us. Likewise, full spectrum light enters plant cells as plants grow. It is suggested by Colour Practitioners and Colour Therapists that this light energy and its healing properties are transferred directly into our bodies when we eat fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts seeds and pulses.

Have you ever felt that 'buzz' after you have eaten a colourful, fresh, delicious and healthy meal?

Carrots Science has now added information to this colourful subject. Take carrots as an example. ORANGE carrots contain alpha and beta-carotene, which converts, in our bodies, into vital Vitamin A. ORANGE carrots also contain Vitamin B, C, D and E, a whole host of essential minerals and even calcium pectate, which can help lower cholesterol. Did you know you can also grow or buy and eat YELLOW, BLACK, RED and even PURPLE carrots, each with a whole host of particular health benefits?

Yellow Pepper This health-giving beta-carotene is also found in many other vegetables, especially in RED, YELLOW, ORANGE and DARK GREEN 'veggies' and fruits, all providing us with Vitamin A to help us to a healthy skin, a healthy immune system, good vision and many other benefits. So help yourself to RED, YELLOW, ORANGE and DARK GREEN broccoli and beetroot, cabbage, squash, corn, mangoes, peppers, dark and delicious honey, asparagus, seeds and nuts... AND did you know that you can even eat the lacy GREEN tops of your carrots in salads, your own helping of Vitamin K.

Red Pepper There are over 900 different phyto-chemicals, substances that are related to the colour pigments found in our fruit and veg, that have now been discovered. These may actually slow down the aging process and reduce the risks of illnesses like heart attacks and strokes.

Add to all this the anti-oxidants found in fruit and veg, and you get some idea of the power of colourful plant food for each and every one of us. We do make anti-oxidants in our bodies but the production declines naturally with age, so what better way to top up on the anti-oxidants than by having your 5-a-day. Eating anti-oxidants helps prevent some of the damage done by free radicals in our bodies and can help protect eyesight, brain degeneration and possibly help slow the onset of heart disease and diabetes.

So what about adding BLUE, PURPLE, MAUVE plums and mushrooms, aubergines and potatoes, olive oil, figs, seaweed, grapes, blueberries...?

The only rules are:

Apple Eat at least '5-a day' - fruit and veg whenever you can - and go easy on processed, high fat and sugary, artificially coloured stuff called 'food'.

Eat your fruit and veg raw or lightly cooked.

ENJOY your healthy RAINBOW DIET and enjoy looking and feeling better with all of this colour in your life.

AND FINALLY

Wine The Scarlet Pixel Team have reported on investigations being carried out worldwide into our food and drink several times (check up on our old news items). For example, a small glass of RED wine can be beneficial for your heart say Dutch researchers at Wageningen University in the Netherlands who have been carrying out research over the last 40 years, studying and assessing the health and drinking habits of 1373 men. Findings show that the moderate RED wine drinkers live on average over 3 years longer than the teetotallers.

ALSO research at Harvard University by Dr I-Min Lee indicates that moderate eating of DARK BROWN chocolate also has health benefits.

Adding colour to your life is not just a matter of a coloured garment or a painted environment.

Adding colour to your life also means eating a colourful plate of fresh fruit and veg which will benefit your health as well as your looks.

Learn more about the colour in YOUR life with Scarlet Pixel.

Photographs used in this article are sourced from http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp