By eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables — green, yellow-orange, red, blue-purple, and white — you’re giving your body a wide range of nutrients that are important for good health. Each color offers something unique, like different vitamins, minerals, and disease-fighting phytochemicals, that work together to protect your health. Only fruits and vegetables, not pills or supplements, can give you these nutrients in the healthy combinations nature intended. Here are some examples:
RED:
Whether you choose red bell peppers, tomatoes, tart cherries, cranberries, raspberries, rhubarb, pomegranates, or beets, all of these healthy fruits and vegetables are positively packed with antioxidants such as vitamin A (beta carotene), vitamin C, manganese, and fiber, making them great for heart health and overall good health, too. Plus, red apples have quercetin, a compound that seems to fight colds, flus, and allergies. And tomatoes, watermelon, and red grapefruit are loaded with lycopene, a compound that’s said to fight cancer.
ORANGE:
you’ll find butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, cantaloupes, oranges, pumpkins, orange peppers, nectarines, and peaches. Some healthy fruits and vegetables are loaded with the antioxidant vitamin C — citrus fruits in particular — and some, such as carrots, with vitamin A (beta-carotene) for improved eyesight. They also contain potassium, fiber, and vitamin B6 for general health support.
YELLOW:
Bananas are usually the first yellow food that comes to mind, and with plentiful fiber for good digestion, potassium for preventing cramps, and vitamin B6 for a variety of healthy benefits, they pack a big punch. Healthy vegetables in yellow include spaghetti squash, summer squash, and yellow bell peppers. The nutrients in vegetables such as these include manganese, potassium, vitamin A, fiber, and magnesium.
GREEN:
Virtually all greens are healthy vegetables and worth adding to your daily diet. Focus on spinach, broccoli, and…
…asparagus. Lutein and folate are two nutrients in vegetables she likes. Lutein helps with eyesight and folate helps in cell reproduction and prevents neural tube defects in infants.
PURPLE:
Whether you choose blackberries, Concord grapes, currants, or plums, deep, rich purple healthy fruits are brimming with healthy antioxidants. Purple represents the anthocyanins, a powerful antioxidant that protects the blood vessels from breakage and prevents the destruction of collagen, a protein needed for healthy, radiant skin. Aside from fruit, you can also find nutrients in vegetables of the color purple, such as radicchio, eggplant, purple cabbage, purple potatoes, and purple carrots, which are rich in vitamin A and flavonoids.
BLUE:
Blueberries are known to be one of the most powerful antioxidants. If you think of the ocean when you think blue, then put water in this category. Water regulates body temperature and provides the means for nutrients to travel to all your organs,” she says. “Water also transports oxygen to cells, removes waste, and protects joints and organs.
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