Plant Pigments
Carotenoids
-yellow, orange
-carrots, corn, pumpkin, oranges
Chlorophylls
-green
-lettuce, spinach, benas, celery
Anthocyanins
-red, purple
-beets, red cabbage, cherries
Anthoxanthins
-white, pale yellow
-cauliflower, onions, banana
Healthy Vegetables and fruits, Each color has its benefit
Food is a source of energy and life. Everybody has a need to take a healthy food which is rich in vitamins, minerals and proteins. This healthy food intake is essential to keep fit and healthy.
A healthy diet is seen as best source that could help you in improving or maintaining optimal health. Fruits and Vegetables are vital for everyday food intake.
Fruits and Vegetables are they low in calories and also high in fiber, some of them also contain unique phytochemicals, or antioxidants that aid in maintaining your perfect health.
It’s important to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables every day to get optimum health benefits. Colorful fruits are recommended, that’s because different colors contains different sets of phytochemicals that provide varied benefits.
It is very beneficial to eat healthy in order to lose weight. Losing weight gets great boost if you include a lot of fiber in your diet. Most Fruits and vegetables gives you high fiber content and they are nutrient rich, still always low in calories.
Following are the kind of colorful fruits and vegetables that you can add to your daily diet in order to make it healthy:
- Red colored Fruits & Vegetables(like Pink grapefruit, red bell peppers, tomatoes, and watermelon) These consist of Lycopene that has shown promise in fighting lung and prostrate cancer. Lycopene is available even after cooking or processing so don’t ignore canned tomato paste.
It also helps in losing weight. - Purple colored Fruits & Vegetables like Concord grapes, blueberries and prunes
These consists anthocyanins, which can give these fruits their distinctive colors and they may also help ward off heart disease by preventing clot formation. These also believed to help lower risk of cancer and to lose weight - Green colored Fruits & Vegetables like Spinach, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collard greens and bok choy. These consists of Lutein which has shown its effect in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke as well as guard against age-related muscular degeneration. Dark green leafy vegetables are usually high in folate a B vitamin that shows promising results in preventing heart diseases. In addition to these Green Fruits and vegetables also contain Sulforaphane, a photochemical present in cruciferous vegetables, was found to detoxify cancer-causing chemicals before they do damage the body.
- Orange colored Fruits & Vegetables like Carrots, Mango, pumpkin and oranges
The beta carotenes in these orange colored fruits and vegetables may prevent cancer, particularly of the lung, esophagus and stomach. They may also reduce risk of heart disease and improve immune function. - White colored Fruits & Vegetables Like Cauliflower, mushrooms, banana and onions
These contain anthoxanthins and allicin, which can help lower blood pressure and protect against stomach cancer. Most people know we should be eating more fruits and vegetables but we are still aren’t eating enough of these. One must take at least 5 portion of variety of fruits and vegetable everyday.
Following is the example of how you could incorporate the healthy foods in your daily intake.
- You could take a glass of juice and a sliced of any fruits with your breakfast.
- Include a side Green salad at lunch.
- An Orange or pear as an afternoon snack is good too.
- Try to include a small portion of peas or other green vegetable in your evening meal.
Why it is important?
