5+ A Day - Guest Post

Team shopHealthy.in would like to wish our customers, readers and well wishers a very happy and safe festival season! On this lovely Diwali festival full of lights and colour, what better way to remind people to fill their dinner plates with colour as well! Here's another guest post from Simran who had brought the yummy oatmeal and walnut cookies recipe to us last time around to give you inspiration and ideas on how to fill your food world with colour!

Simran writes:

Over the last few years, we (me and my family) have become conscious of what we have been eating. Its partly because of the need to eat healthy to stay fit in the long run and because of the increased awareness of what goes into the food we eat - at home and outside!

Do you know about 5+ A Day? It is the target of fruit and vegetable serves that you and your family should enjoy every day. The ideal target is 2 serves of fruit and 3 serves of vegetables.

But to make it well rounded you should try and select your 5 serves from each of the 5 major colour groups!

Fruits and veggies have a lot of nutrients and phytochemicals (pronounced fight-o-chemicals) that everyone needs for good health. Phytochemicals are also responsible for the bright colours in all the different fruits and veggies. There are 5 major colour groups. The main aim of eating the 'colour way' is to encourage eating from as many colours of the rainbow as possible!

Veggies for Pasta

Here are some examples to give you an idea of the 5 colour groups:

Red: Strawberries, tomato, red apples, red onions, red pepper, red skinned potato, red cabbage

Orange/Yellow: Carrot, sweet potato, pumpkin, melon, sweet corn, squash

White: Cauliflower, banana, pear, garlic, onion, potato, ginger, mushroom

Green: Spinach, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, kiwifruit, celery, lettuce, brussel sprouts

Blue/Purple: Blueberries, raisins, egg plant, red cabbage, beetroot

Orange and fennel salad

When you plan your daily menu, don't forget to include a range of colours! :)

So in that pasta throw in some red pepper, broccoli, onions and you've already covered 3 colours - easy isn't that!

Grab an apple or a banana or some raisins and you cover some more in the day.

Even with the veggies try cooking different colours every day - I know sounds tough, you must be thinking, with everything else now I need to think "What is the colour of my food??". To make it easy, when you shop for veggies, pick up different coloured ones and you will eventually cook and eat those!

Cucumber and black Garbanzo beans salad