Tag Archives: nutrients

Healthy Habits: Eat More Colors

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The living world around us is filled with color. Look around and you may see blue sky, green grass, aqua oceans, and an unlimited array of tress, flowers and plants bursting with intense, vibrant color. Health is associated with color as well. When we are healthy we have pink cheeks, bright eyes, and a healthy flush to our skin. Quite interestingly, aging is the gradual loss of color. This fading of color marks the slowing or ebbing of life vibrancy.

It is no wonder then that colorful foods are the healthiest foods we can nourish our bodies with. They contain nutritional benefit in the form of phytonutrients, which means plant nutrients. The fruits and vegetables with the most vivid colors contain the highest amount of these important plant nutrients. Their hues act as a table of contents for the phytochemicals found inside the plant.

Listed below is a color guide for choosing the fruits and vegetables that will provide these powerful healing plant nutrients. Make a conscious effort to include a variety of these healthy colors in your daily diet. Not only will you get more nutrients, but your meals will become more fun and enjoyable.

  • Orange: Contains beta-carotene, an antioxidant that supports immune function.
  • Yellow-Orange: Provides vitamin C, which detoxifies and inhibits tumor cell growth.
  • Red: Holds lycopen, an antioxidant that reduces cancer risk.
  • Green: Contains folate and iron, which are essential to building healthy cells and genetic material.
  • Green-Light: Provide indoles and lutein, which eliminates excess estrogen and carcinogens.
  • Green-White: Hold allyl sulfides. These can destroy cancer cells and support a healthy immune system.
  • Blue (fruits): Contain anthocyanins that destroy free radicals.
  • Red-purple (fruits): Provide reservatrol, a plaque reducer and mineral chelator.
  • Brown (legumes, whole grains): Are high in fiber, carcinogen remover and digestive aid.

Filling your diet with many colorful fresh fruits and vegetables is a great way to ensure your body is getting all the vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients you need to stay healthy, happy, and vibrant. Think ‘rainbow’ the next time you prepare your plate.

For more whole health discussions like this, listen to my weekly radio show Living Above The Drama. Also available on iHeartRadio.

How Digestive Function Affects Integrative Nutrition

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Digestion Disorder and Nutrition National Institute Of Whole Health Integrative Nutrition Information

The single most reported complaints in all hospital emergency rooms are related to digestive system disorders. The digestive system is the most “stress affected” system in the human body. The American Nutrition Association shares that as many as 70,000,000 suffer from digestive symptoms like diarrhea, gas, bloating and abdominal pain. These symptoms aren’t just uncomfortable, they also disrupt the body’s ability to absorb essential nutrients, leading to a host of diseases.

Wouldn’t it be helpful to understand and educate others on how and why they are suffering from digestive ailments? Let’s looks at this from a whole health perspective.

We all know people who eat organic, whole foods and are meticulous about the quality and quantity of what they put in their body and are sick, tired, plagued with health issues. Then there are others who eat anything and everything, the good, the bad and the ugly and have energy to burn, not a pimple on their entire body and feel great.

Often, what this is the result of the function and efficiency of their individual nervous systems. Those who have an active “sympathetic” nervous system, with the tenth cranial nerve reeking havoc with their alimentary canal, they are the folks that no matter what they eat and how, pure, clean and how much organic foods they consume – they just don’t do well and feel unwell much of the time.

For the individual with a well tuned central nervous system the digestive system can be a culinary playground that accepts all types of nutrients and food stuffs and produces ample nutrition without up set or illness.

What makes one nervous system different from another, one person’s experience different from another? It has more to do with the unconscious personality of an individual than any other single factor, with the exception of the rare congenital or pathological occurrence.

The digestive system has an intimate relationship with other systems including the immune system, reproductive, circulatory and endocrine systems. Improving overall whole health often starts with the digestive system.

For more whole health discussions, listen to Dr. Georgianna Donadio’s radio show Living Above The Drama.