Eat the Rainbow: Why is it Important to Have Colorful Fruits and Vegetables

Various colored fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, legumes, and nuts offer us a plethora of phytonutrients.

Highlights:

A rainbow of fruits and vegetables helps the body receive all the necessary nutrients
Every colored fruit and vegetable is brimming with vital phytonutrients that support bodily functions and contribute to living a healthy lifestyle //

‘Eat the rainbow’ is a fundamental healthy eating tip that we hear from all top nutritionists, and no, it does not refer to the artificially colored skittles or other colored chocolates like M&Ms but to the variety of vibrant and colorful fruits and vegetables that you can find in the grocery store’s produce section.

If you are looking for a way to make your meals more vibrant, colorful, and full of healthy hues, then look no further, because this is your ultimate guide to adding a rainbow of fruits and vegetables, ranging from pure white to vibrant orange to deep purple, to your diet.

Is it Skin Deep: Why You Should Not Peel Your Fruits and Vegetables
Trying to eat healthy, we unwittingly discard most of the nutrients by peeling fruits and veggies. Peels are actually richer in antioxidants and vitamin C as compared to the fruit pulp.

‘Rainbow fruits and vegetables have a variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytochemicals that may be more powerful for your health than any pill.’

Phytochemicals, which are natural bioactive elements that not only give many fruits and vegetables their eye-catching colors, but also promote excellent health, and are responsible for the color of fruits and vegetables ().

In fact, these vibrantly colored fruits and vegetables are the richest in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants, and top nutritionists always recommend eating a variety of fruits and vegetables. This isn't merely to make the plate seem great. Each color indicates a different vitamin that our bodies need.

What Does Each Color do for our Body and our Overall Health?

Red: The Color of Antioxidants

Red fruits and vegetables, including tomatoes, apples, cherries, watermelon, red grapes, strawberries, and capsicum, are colored by a type of phytonutrient called ‘carotenoids.’ These carotenoids act as natural antioxidants for the body ().

These anti-oxidants act as ‘free radicals’ that are formed naturally in our body as a byproduct of all our usual bodily processes, such as breathing and moving, but they also come from UV light exposure, smoking, air pollutants, and industrial chemicals.

Health Benefits of Red and Orange Vegetables
Red and orange vegetables are rich in bioactive pigments and nutrients. A healthy diet comprising foods of varied colors should be consumed for well-being.

Free radicals are unstable molecules that can harm our body's proteins, cell membranes, and DNA. This natural but harmful process is referred to as 'oxidation' or 'oxidative stress.' This promotes ageing, inflammation, and diseases such as cancer and heart disease.

Importantly, antioxidants clears free radicals in our bodies. They stabilize free radicals, preventing them from causing damage, increasing your intake of antioxidants lowers oxidative stress and lowers your risk of several diseases, including arthritis, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer ().

Foods that Give You Sparkling Eyes
Food not only sustains us but the kind and quality of food determines the state of your health, which includes your eyes. Let us see which foods can bring a sparkle to your eyes!

Orange: A Vitamin Vision Source

Orange fruits and vegetables, like carrots, pumpkins, apricots, mandarins, oranges, and turmeric, also contain carotenoids, but slightly different ones from those in red veggies. These carotenoids are converted to vitamin A in our bodies, which is important for healthy eyes and good eyesight.

Vitamin A is also an antioxidant that can target the parts of your body made of lipids (or fats), such as cell membranes, reducing the risk of cancer and heart disease ().

Fruits and Vegetables for Healthy Weight Loss
For healthy weight loss, focus on consuming low-calorie foods such as fruits and vegetables because food items that are low in energy density help you lose weight faster.

Yellow: The Carotenoid Source

Yellow fruits and vegetables, which include apples, pears, bananas, lemons, and pineapple, contain carotenoids, but they also contain other phytonutrients that are particularly important for eye health and can decrease the risk of age-related macular degeneration, which leads to blurring of your central vision.

These phytonutrients can also absorb UV light in your eyes, acting like a natural sunscreen for the eyes and protecting them from the damaging effects of the sun ().

Green: The Carrier of Vitamin B9

Green fruits and vegetables, including avocados, Brussels sprouts, apples, pears, green tea, and leafy vegetables, contain many phytonutrients, including chlorophyll, catechins, epigallocatechin gallate, phytosterols, nitrates, and an important nutrient known as folate (or vitamin B9).

Folate is recommended before pregnancy because it lowers the chance of neural tube abnormalities in newborns (such as spina bifida). Folate has been proven to stimulate healthy cell division and DNA synthesis, which aid in the development of the fetal nervous system during the first few weeks of pregnancy.

These also act as antioxidants and provide important benefits in keeping your blood vessels healthy, by promoting something called "vasodilation," making our blood vessels more elastic and flexible, allowing them to widen or dilate, improving blood circulation, and reducing blood pressure. It also aids in the prevention of heart and other vessel complications and diseases ().

Blue and Purple: The Antioxidant Pack

Other phytonutrients found in blue and purple vegetables include anthocyanins, resveratrol, tannins, and others. Blackberries, blueberries, figs, prunes, and purple grapes contain them.

Anthocyanins contain antioxidant characteristics and thus help to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, and stroke, as explained under red fruits and vegetables ().

More recent evidence suggests that they may also help with memory. This is considered to happen via enhancing signaling between brain cells and allowing the brain to evolve and adapt to new knowledge (a process known as brain plasticity) ().

Brown and White: Ultimate Source of Flavone

Brown and white fruits and vegetables are colored by apigenin, luteolin, isoetin, and other phytonutrients known as "flavones." Foods containing them include garlic, potatoes, and bananas.

Allicin is another phytonutrient present in foods of this color, particularly garlic. Antibacterial and antiviral activities have been demonstrated for allicin ().

The majority of this study is still in the lab, and there haven't been many clinical trials in humans, but lab-based studies have indicated it suppresses bacteria when grown under laboratory conditions.

Allicin has also been shown in systematic studies to normalize elevated blood pressure by inducing blood vessel dilatation ().

How can I Increase my Intake of Fruits and Vegetables?

We obtain a ton of phytonutrients from colored fruit and vegetables, as well as from herbs, spices, legumes, and nuts. Promoting a variety of fruits and vegetables is an easy way to ensure that all age groups receive the greatest possible health benefits.

But the majority of us don't consume the recommended daily servings of fruit and vegetables. Intake recommendations include the following:

When purchasing fruits and vegetables, fill your shopping cart with a rainbow of colors (frozen varieties are absolutely fine)
Give some unfamiliar fruits and veggies a try. The internet offers advice on numerous methods for cooking vegetables
Purchase colorful versions of your usual produce, such as apples, grapes, onions, and lettuce.
Consume the skins since they may have more phytonutrients than the flesh.
Don't forget to include herbs and spices in your cooking because they are rich in phytonutrients and help vegetables taste better.

References:

Health-promoting components of fruits and vegetables in the diet - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23674808/)
Carotenoids and their isomers: color pigments in fruits and vegetables - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21336241/)
Antioxidant Phytochemicals for the Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Diseases - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26633317/)
What is vitamin A and why do we need it? - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3936685/)
Dietary sources of lutein and zeaxanthin carotenoids and their role in eye health - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23571649/)
Recent Developments in Folate Nutrition - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29477222/)
Recent Research on the Health Benefits of Blueberries and Their Anthocyanins - (https://academic.oup.com/advances/article/11/2/224/5536953)
Blueberries Improve Neuroinflammation and Cognition differentially Depending on Individual Cognitive baseline Status - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30772901/)
Antimicrobial properties of allicin from garlic - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10594976/)
Potential of garlic (Allium sativum) in lowering high blood pressure: mechanisms of action and clinical relevance - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4266250/)

Source-Medindia