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QUESTION:
Dear Tom: I’ve seen quite a
few diet books lately that are based on the color of the
foods you eat, including the rainbow diet, the color diet
and the “color code” (sounds like the Da Vinci code, LOL!)
Anyway, I’ve been reading your newsletters for a long time
and I know how you feel about diet pills, books and gimmicks
and I was wondering what you thought about these programs.
Is it just another gimmick?
ANSWER:
Based on the clever
titles, it might be tempting to dismiss these programs as
gimmicks, and in fact when your weekly menus are literally
“color coded,” it might seem that the diet book authors
are just scrambling for a new hook or premise on which to
base an entire eating program. |
I have not read any of those books
you mentioned yet, so I can’t comment on any of them specifically.
However, as “gimmicky” as eating from every color in the rainbow
may sound at first, there is some very legitimate and scientific
evidence that this is a great idea.
We are often given the advice to eat
a lot of fruits and vegetables (which have a variety of different
colors). Good advice of course; even common sense would tell us
that. However, “eat a lot of fruits and vegetables” is vague
advice because it could mean eating only apples and broccoli (red
and green), and nothing else, but eating “a lot” of them. To
take that advice to the next level, a better recommendation would be
to eat a WIDE VARIETY of fruits and vegetables (not just “a lot”).
Even “wide variety” is not really
defined. What is a wide variety? Did you know that there are
hundreds of different types of fruits and veggies? To make an even
greater distinction, you could begin to sort your fruits and
vegetables by color and eat a wide variety every day (at least 5 to
9 servings) and an even wider variety spread over the span of each
week.
Why would you go to all the trouble?
Well, each various food color is indicative of the phytonutrients
and other healthful nutritional compounds found within these foods.
According to the textbook Sports & Exercise Nutrition by Katch,
Katch & McArdle), over 4000 phytochemicals have been identified,
and 150 of them have been studied in detail.
By definition, phytonutrients (also
called phytochemicals) are naturally occurring, health promoting
compounds found in the plant kingdom. There has been much research
on the functional properties of these compounds, proving that they
play important and diverse roles in maintaining your health and
protecting you from disease.
Foods such as tomatoes (red), carrots
(orange), broccoli (green), blueberries (blue) all contain important
phytochemicals that play specific roles in health and disease
prevention. Onions, whole grains, herbs, spices and other foods also
contain their own special types of protective phytochemicals.
Here are some of the phytochemicals
and naturally health-promoting compounds and the foods they
correspond to:
FLAVONOIDS (quercitin, kaempferol,
myricetin, catechins)
Fruits
Vegetables
Berries
Citrus fruits
Onions
Purple grapes
Tea
CAROTENOIDS (luten, lycopene,
zeaxanthin, a-carotene, b-carotene)
Carrots
Tomatoes
Cantaloupe Apricots
GLUCOSINOLATES (glucobrassicin,
isothiocyanates, indoles)
Cruciferous vegetables
Broccoli
Brussel sprouts
Cabbage
SULFIDES (allium compounds,
dithiolthiones)
Onions
Garlic
Leeks
scallions
Each of these compounds has a health
promoting role in the body ranging from antioxidant activity to
cancer protection. There is much more going on here than just
building muscle and shedding body fat. Eating a wide variety of
fruits, vegetables and other natural foods has major health and
quality of life implications.
It’s great news to know how much
control we can take over our health and physical fitness simply with
proper food choices (and proper exercise). The only thing about
these discoveries that saddens and disappoints me is that it seems
each time our scientists discover something, such as lycopene in
tomatoes for example, someone wants to put it in a bottle and sell
it to us. (Why not just go to the source and eat the tomatoes???)
I believe in an intelligent creator,
and I believe that the creator of our bodies and this universe we
live in, knew exactly what he was doing when he created the
marvelous diversity of plants and animals that comprise our food
supply. Although it may be prudent in this modern industrial age to
take a multi vitamin/mineral supplement and maybe an essential fatty
acid supplement for “nutritional insurance,” everything you need
can be found in your food.
If you think about what the discovery
of all these naturally occurring compounds really means, you will
have to agree that food truly is the most powerful drug. Combine
that with recent discoveries in physiology and
psychoneoruoimmunology proving that our bodies are their own
self-regulating natural pharmacies, and you also have to agree that
the natural way is the best way.
In any case, it’s definitely not
enough to think only in terms of calories and macronutrients
(proteins, carbohydrates and fats). Energy needs and macronutrient
needs are important, but also think about your nutrition in terms of
a wide variety of natural foods, and that includes a wide variety of
colors.
For more information about the all
natural way to fat loss and better health, read about the Burn The
Fat, Feed The Muscle program at www.BurnTheFat.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom
Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning
specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the
author of "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you
how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the
world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid
of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.BurnTheFat.com
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