Blue and purple fruits and vegetables, that is! We’ve made it all the way to the end of the rainbow, and we didn’t have to get to the end to find the treasure because there’s treasure in every bite when you eat the rainbow. With every good choice you make concerning what you eat, you are adding to your greatest wealth which is your health.
I hope you’ve been as excited as I have as we learned more about the nutrients in fruits and vegetables and how valuable they are for our health. This last post will be a short one as I just focus on a couple of things that excited me in my research this past week. Those things are gallic acid and purple potatoes.
Purple potatoes? Who’s ever heard of such a thing? You may have seen them or heard of them, but have you tried one? I haven’t, so I’m on a mission to do just that as soon as I can find one. In the past, I’ve been a finicky eater, but since I’ve switched to a whole foods plant based diet, I’ve become more and more adventurous in the kitchen. In the past, I may have been reluctant to try a purple potato, but now I’m excited to find out how it tastes.
While the thought of tasting a purple potato excites me, it’s what gives the purple potato its color that excites me the most: antioxidants! Purple potatoes have FOUR TIMES more antioxidant potential than regular potatoes. Keep your eyes open for purple potato recipes on my website in the future. I want to get as much bang for my nutritional buck as possible, so if I can use purple potatoes in some recipes where I now use russet or gold, I’m going to do it.
The second thing I learned about this week is a phytochemical found in blueberries called gallic acid. Gallic acid has been shown in studies to induce apoptosis, or cell death, in both pancreatic cancer cells and cervical cancer cells without damaging nearby healthy cells. Gallic acid is just one of many golden nuggets we find when we eat a rainbow diet.
If you want to find more golden nuggets and have a little fun researching phytonutrients, here’s a list of just those found in blueberries: malvidins, delphinidins, pelagonidins, cyanidins, peonidins, caffeic acid, ferulic acid, coumaric acid, gallic acid, procatchuic acid, kaempferol, quercetin, myricetin, pterostilbene, resveratrol. Whew, I get exhausted just looking at that list! It would take several pages to list all the different nutrients found in the variety of fruits and vegetables we get to enjoy as we try to eat the rainbow every day. Suffice it to say that when we eat the rainbow, we are stockpiling an arsenal of weapons that will help us fight against bacteria, viruses and disease. It makes me feel good to know that safeguarding my health is as easy as sitting down to a delicious, nutritious meal.
While I doubt you’ll find riches at the end of the next rainbow you see, you’ll certainly find riches in every bite of your rainbow diet. From the polyphenols in apples that help regulate blood sugar to the bromelain in pineapples that helps with joint pain and inflammation, to the gallic acid in blueberries, the phytonutrients in fruits and vegetables are making you wealthier with every bite. Gandhi said, “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” I know this to be true, and I encourage you to make a conscious effort every day to add to the wealth that is your health by continuing to eat the rainbow.
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