Think Color FULLY to Eat Right
March is National Nutrition Month and Eat Right with Color is this year’s theme. The key message is: If you choose foods from the palette of colors you will increase your chances of meeting your (and your family’s) nutrition needs. ColorFULL foods come packed with a variety of essential nutrients. Think red peppers, brown rice, oranges, pink grapefruits, green leafy vegetables – you get the colorFULL picture.
Unfortunately most Americans aren’t assembling colorFULL meals and snacks. The recently released 2010 Dietary Guidelines point this out vividly.
- Too much color from too much added sugars: Americans are sipping, slurping and chewing about 22 teaspoons of added sugars a day. The leading contributor is drinks – from regularly sweetened/full calorie (and sometimes colorful by artificial means) sports drinks, to fruit drinks, and soda. Add coffee drinks, chai and more.Solution? Think before you drink! Quench your thirst with zero calorie beverages – water, tea, coffee, club soda, or diet beverage.
- Too little color from white or beige refined grains: Surprisingly refined grains such as full calorie, made from white flour baked goods (pastries, donuts, cookies, pizza crust, etc.) nearly top the list of contributors for added sugars. Fried snack foods (potato chips, corn chips, cheese curls, etc) are heavy on the calories from fat. Another problem with refined grains and fried snack foods is nearly no fiber. Americans eek out just one-third of the three servings of whole grains we need and our fiber consumption rates barely a blip vs. our needs for 25 grams of fiber per day.Solution? Choose foods made from whole grains whenever possible– bread, cereals, pastas, brown rice. To add up your grams of fiber look to the wide variety of fibers in foods – from pectin, beta glucan, fructans and resistant starch. They’ve all got unique health benefits. Choose from legumes (beans), corn, oats, fruits and vegetables. Look for ready-to-prepare baked goods that go light on the added sugars and fats but heavy on fiber.
- Not nearly enough fruits and vegetables: Only 1% of American adults meet the 5-a-day recommendation for fruits and vegetables – 2 ½ cups of vegetables and 2 cups of fruit. And beyond our under par intake we choose from a narrow list of fruits and vegetables. The top priority of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines is plain and simple: Increase vegetable and fruit intake. Yes, eat more!Solution? Start your day with one or two servings of fruit – fruit in cereal, fruit topped with yogurt, a handful of raisins. Take fruit and vegetables along for the ride if you eat on the run. (If you don’t you won’t get your fill. They’re hard to find and if/when you do, they’re expensive.) Eat a couple of servings of vegetables (at least) at lunch and dinner – fill half your plate with vegetables. Now that will fill you up! Vary your fruits and veggies to take advantage of each of their nutrition strong suits: berries offer fiber, apples get an A for vitamin A, and oranges provide plenty of vitamin C.
Fruits and vegetables to meet your nutritional needs
Make eating more vegetables your number one nutrition goal NOW. Slowly add them in and up. Select fruits and vegetables from a palette of colors to please your palate and meet your nutrient needs:
Green:
• Fruits: avocado, green grapes, honeydew melon and kiwi
• Vegetables: asparagus, broccoli, green beans, green peppers and leafy greens (spinach, kale, chard and salad greens)
Orange and deep yellow:
• Fruits: oranges, apricots, cantaloupe, mangos, bananas, peaches and pineapple
• Vegetables: carrots, yellow peppers, corn, winter squash and sweet potatoes
Purple and blue:
• Fruits: blackberries, blueberries, plums, and raisins (don’t shy away from dried fruit – it’s great on the go)
• Vegetables: eggplant, red/purple cabbage
Red:
• Fruits: cherries, raspberries, red/pink grape fruits, red grapes and watermelon
• Vegetables: beets, red onions, red peppers, red potatoes, and tomatoes
White and tan:
• Fruits: pears, white peaches, apples
• Vegetables: cauliflower, mushrooms, onions, parsnips, turnips, white potatoes
(Orange)
