Try using this chart at dinner time with your children – you may find them responsive and happy to then add more colour to their dinner plates in order to get that ‘extra tick’. Children often find this game-approach encouraging.
Why do we need to ‘eat the rainbow’?
Wellness advisors often use the phrase to get people — especially children — to incorporate more fruit and vegetables in their diets.
For optimal health, we need a variety of nutrients and for the most part this means incorporating a diverse selection of fruit and vegetables every day. Each distinctive colour introduces a unique amount of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and phytonutrients to the body. For example, anthocyanins give red and purple fruit and vegetables their color and serve as powerful antioxidants in the body.
Bacteria in your gut change in response to your diet quickly. Over a matter of weeks, these changes may start to affect your health, making diet the single biggest influence on your gut health.