Colors

Union Square Farmers Market, New York

The colors of summer offer tasty variety and nutrition

Color is like food for me. It brightens my existence as much or more than many other sensory joys. A panoply of color is a feast for the eyes. If that luscious array happens to be edible, like fruits and veggies, what beauty! Head to your farmer's market, like the one above near me at Union Square, to feast your baby blues on the gorgeous plant-based goods.

Health experts tell us that eating the rainbow is far healthier than sticking to the white foods: choose whole grain breads, brown rice, yams and sweet potatoes, berries, tomatoes, melons, etc. The chlorophyll that greens up kale, broccoli, lettuce and celery enhances their nutritional value. The antioxidants in red, blue and purple fruits help protect against cancer-causing free-radicals. The betacarotene in carrots and other orange foods helps our eyes, the brown outer covering of grains such as wheat, rye,  and rice, as well as the ancient grains such as kamut, farro and  amaranth, contain the most vitamins and minerals, as opposed to their blander interiors.

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Try to add two or three different colored foods to each meal (natural colors, not commercially colored foods). For example, breakfast can be a smoothie, green or otherwise. Lunch can be a big salad of greens with red tomato, brown beans, yellow-green avocado, red onion, purple olives, and whatever other good stuff you want. Go easy on the dressing because oils weigh it down.

Dinner can be a vegetarian chili, rich with tomatoes and their awesome lycopene, punctuated by black beans, garbanzos and pintos, chopped or grated zucchini, peppers, onions and garlic. Serve this colorful main dish on a bed of quinoa, corn, brown rice or tortilla chips (or even Fritos, once in a while). Another day you can make it Chili Mac by adding some cooked rice elbow macaroni.

Evening snack? Last night I fixed a bowl of fresh berries: blackberries, blueberries and strawberries. Delicious! So here's your challenge: see how many different colors you can eat in a day. We adults will feel healthier than ever, and our kids and grandkids will learn from us that colorful natural foods, as opposed to fake colors in candy, cake, cookies and other prepared foods, are great!

Plant-based eating is healthy and delicious, too!