Try this colourful and healthy rainbow diet
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Try this colourful and healthy rainbow diet

It’s quite simple, the more colours you eat, the more you expose yourself to a variety of nutrients

Try this colourful and healthy rainbow diet

Food fads are ever-changing and more often than not, it’s difficult to play catch up. Do you know what else is difficult and unhealthy? Quitting food groups in order to meet your goal. Most diet trends promise to be high on nutrition and also induce rapid weight loss. However, that’s usually not true. Take it from someone who has followed all these diets regularly only to be left clueless in the end. A lot of these diets such as Keto, Paleo require you to cut down on a certain food group to meet your goal. I’ve even participated in juice cleanses only to eat more after the cleanse. To be honest, they kind of make me feel drained at the end.

So we decided to find a diet that actually worked without affecting one’s mental and physical health. And here’s what we found:

Diet That Works

Turns out, there’s actually a diet that is as appealing as it sounds -- the rainbow diet. No, we’re not joking with you. The rainbow diet is actually a health-inspired trend that encourages one to eat  colourful fruits and vegetables that are red, orange, yellow, green, and purple. “A rainbow diet as the name suggests prescribes adding fruits and vegetables of varied colours to your daily diet to amp up your nutrition game. Each colour significantly helps you to meet your body’s nutrition requirements,” explains Seema Ranglani, Nutritionist, Health Coach from Sector 10 in Dwarka.

Pros of Rainbow Diet

It’s quite simple, the more colours you eat, the more you expose yourself to a variety of nutrients that come along with eating colours. “Adding 4-5 servings of different fruits and 5-6 servings of  vegetables ensures you get a good dose of antioxidants, phytochemicals, micronutrients, polyphenols, and fibre which helps in improving our gut and overall health,” adds Seema.  And thankfully, there’s no vegetable or fruit that’s labelled unhealthy or too-high-in-sugar in this diet.

How to Eat Rainbow Diet

The diet is actually a simple way to cleanse your system and  incorporate clean eating without restricting yourself.

The ultimate goal should be to add 30 and more different colourful fruits and vegetables to your meals every week. We get that it may sound too much but it becomes easy when you start planning one colourful food pot for every meal. Opt for smoothies, plant-based milkshakes, salads and stir-pots to get your quota of colours.

Photo Credit: CitySpidey
Photo Credit: CitySpidey

Advantage of Rainbow Diet

Oh, the advantages of the diet are endless, claims Seema, “Advantages of the popular diet is that it helps in the management of health issues like blood sugar balance, aids in lowering blood pressure and bad cholesterol and maintaining great heart health.” That’s not all; she said that it also works wonders for your skin health, good eye care and overall brain health.

Why Rainbow Diet?

If you really need another reason then here’s one. With this quality of air, food, water, and the type of skincare products we are exposed to, the toxin load in our body is always on the rise. This can damage organs and cause harm to your health. “With the increased consumption of processed foods, the rainbow diet really helps in better health management as it provides the necessary antioxidants to fight the free radicals in our body and protect us from lethal side effects,” says Seema.

Recipe for Rainbow Diet

Ingredients

1/4 piece pear
1/2 apple
3-4 unsweetened prunes
1 tsp lemon juice
5 – 6 black raisins
1/4 cup water

Method:

In a blending jar, add all the ingredients with 1/4 cup water and blend together. Transfer to a glass or a mason jar, drink immediately or chill if you like it cold.

Rainbow Diet Table

Red: Food sources like tomatoes, red peppers, or strawberries are rich in lycopene which is a powerful antioxidant. It offers many health benefits including sun protection and improved heart health.

Orange: Food sources like orange, carrots, papaya are rich in antioxidants that help fight cancer-causing free radicals.

Yellow: Foods like pineapple and papaya are loaded with nutrients that can ease digestion, suppress inflammation and reduce the risk of heart disease.

Green: Green vegetables like spinach, kale, broccoli, celery are loaded with lutein that significantly contributes to our eye health.

Purples/Blues: Deep coloured foods like purple cauliflower, purple cabbage, purple kale, eggplant, blueberries, cranberries, are loaded with antioxidants that benefit brain health, lowers inflammation and helps fight cancer.

White/Tan: These foods have minerals like potassium, manganese, magnesium and lots of fibre. Sources like bananas, potatoes, onions, garlic are rich in allicin that helps with good heart health.

Eating colourful foods also helps in uplifting our nutrient quotient and strengthen our immune cells to combat various diseases. This makes it the correct diet to follow during such crucial times. BRB, going grocery shopping to stock up on my colourful diet!