Tip Of The Week: Healthy Eating

 

Healthy eating tip 4: Eat the rainbow

Eat plenty of colourful vegetables and fruits. It is no secret that fruits and vegetables are great for you as they pack the essential nutrients that your body needs to function. One of the great things about fruits and veggies is that they come in different shapes, colours, and tastes; this means that there is one for every palate.


Fruits and vegetables are low in calories and nutrient dense, which means they are chock-full with minerals, vitamins, fibre, antioxidants – superpowers in the fight against disease and aging. Focus on eating the recommended daily minimum of 5 servings of vegetables and fruit and it will naturally fill you up and help you curb unhealthy foods. An exemplar of a serving is half a cup of raw fruit or veggies or a small banana or apple. Most of us essentially to double the amount we currently eat.
Try to eat a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day as deeply coloured fruits and vegetables contain higher concentrations of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants. Add berries to breakfast cereals, eat fruit for dessert, and snack on vegetables such as carrot, cucumber, garden eggs, or cherry tomatoes instead of processed snack foods.

This is why eating different-coloured fruits and veggies are important because you are getting variety for your senses, but also a variety of nutrients.

1. Greens. Branch out beyond lettuce. Kale, ugu (Nigerian pumpkin leaf), broccoli, and Chinese cabbage are all chock-full with iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc, potassium and vitamins A, C, E, and K.
2. Sweet vegetables. Naturally sweet vegetables—such as beetroots, carrots, corn, sweet potatoes, yams, squash, and onions—add healthy sweetness to your meals and reduce your cravings for added sugars.
3. Fruit. Fruit is a tasty, satisfying way to fill up on fibre, vitamins, and antioxidants. Berries are cancer-fighting, apples provide fibre, mangoes and oranges offer vitamin C, and so on.