Eating by COLOUR

Eating by COLOUR

A healthy diet and lifestyle can be summarised in these simple guidelines:

– Eat fruit and vegetables in abundance.
– Eat fish (rich in Omega 3 fatty acids) but avoid eating often caviar, catfish, smoked salmon, herrings in brine, and, in general, salted, cured or preserved fish.
– Eat only lean meat, no more than once a week, balancing your protein intake with vegetables and fruit.
– Avoid or reduce consumption of pork, salame, dried, cured and preserved meats, and food in brine.
– Limit your consumption of dairy products and eggs. Low-fat cheese, ricotta, skimmed milk and soy cheese are fine.
– Limit consumption of food made from refined wheat, corn and cereals choosing instead those made from whole grains.
– Choose olive oil over other oils or fats, best is extra olive oil that has been cold pressed since it has the greatest concentration of antioxidants.
– Limit coffee consumption to 1-2 a day, preferably not on an empty stomach, or even better, drink green tea.
– Avoid fizzy beverages and those with cola. Drinking one or two glasses of red wine a day during meals is fine.
– Avoid being sedentary. Do regular and intense physical activity. Regular physical or sporting activity can help you lose weight, overcome stress-related conditions, and combat tension, tiredness and depression.

Numerous epidemiological studies have shown that fruit and vegetables act as protection not only from cancer but also from many other diseases.

New guidelines have been formulated for the reduction of risk of disease based on the daily consumption of five colours of vegetables and fruit: red, orange, green, blue and white.

In fact, the effectiveness of our organism appears to be guaranteed by a daily consumption of five portions of fruit and vegetables.

An adequate diet is one that has the right quantities of water, sugars, vitamins, minerals, fibre and organic compounds of vegetable origin (phytochemicals).

Eating one fruit or vegetable alone or many of the same type cannot satisfy the multiple needs of our human organism.

«The health properties of fruit and vegetables derive not only from their content of water, sugars, vitamins and minerals that can be found in other food, but also from the fibre and organic compounds of vegetable origin (phytochemicals). It is the latter that capture the sun’s energy giving fruit and vegetables their bright and exciting colours».

We can divide fruit and vegetables into five colour groups:

SEASONS AND DIET

While eating fruit and vegetables in general is always beneficial for our health because of the abundance of protective antioxidant substances they contain, it is important to try and eat according to the seasons.

There are two reasons for this, one ecological – eating locally produced food and not that which arrives from far away countries consuming fossil fuels – and the other nutritional – fruit harvested long before it is mature loses much of its nutritional value and has less taste.