Summertime Blues and Reds and Purples

By this time, most of us know that including fruits and vegetables in our diet can protect us from a range of diseases such as cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart disease and high blood pressure. But are you aware of how important it is to make sure that your fruit and vegetable intake includes a variety of colors? Broccoli may be good for you but if it is the only vegetable you consume, you are missing out on a lot of protective phytochemicals.

Phytochemicals are compounds found in plant foods that have beneficial effects on our bodies. There are many different types of these chemicals, and each plays a role in keeping us healthy. Most importantly, each plant food contains it own particular set of phytochemicals. So how do you know if you are getting all the phytochemicals you need? As it turns out, nature made it easy.

Many phytochemicals are also the pigments that give the alluring colors to fruits and vegetables. Plants are essentially color coded, and if you follow the code, you'll have no problem getting the full compliment of protection that your body needs each day. The important colors to include are: green, yellow/orange, red, blue/purple and white. The USDA has a chart outlining the various colors, why they are important and which foods provide them. While the information is interesting—it really isn't necessary—just look at your plate and add some color if there isn't any there.

When focused on making sure that your plate is full of natural color from fresh fruits and vegetables, you begin to lessen the amount of saturated fat, refined carbohydrate and processed food that you consume. If you are basing choices on color, potato chips in a lunch bag get replaced with carrot sticks and the cookies move over for blueberries. With these simple changes, meals become more attractive, and far healthier.

While green and orange pigments are easy to include on a daily basis; the anthocyanins—red, blue and purple pigments—are a little more challenging. Beets are delicious, but not day after day after day. Luckily anthocyanins are found abundantly in berries and right now farmers' markets are bursting with them. Summer is definitely the tastiest time of the year for anthocyanins.

When you head off to the market to buy berries there are a few important facts to keep in mind. First, as is the case with greens, the darker the pigment, the more anti-oxidant a plant contains; so blueberries for instance, offer more protection than strawberries. In fact, a recent study by the USDA shows that of forty fruits and vegetables tested, blueberries have the highest anti-oxidant activity.