Ideas to make your diet more colourful!

Ideas to make your diet more colourful!

If you are cooking new recipes, or traditional favorites, you can improve your health by incorporating as many colors as possible.

Here are a few ideas on how to get more color on your plate:

• Add chopped carrots, tomatoes, or cabbage to any soup or stew.
• Increase flavor of  pasta sauce by adding a mixed vegetable medley.

• Make desert sweetly healthy by using tons of colored fruits, and skip the ice cream!
• Turn a sandwich into a more filling treat by using fresh veggies.

•Add colourful fruits and veges to your bhel whether it is sprouts bhel, kurmura bhel or khakhra bhel.
• Order a pizza without cheese! Just tell them to pile the veggies up high instead.

• Ask for broccoli, spinach, tomato, garlic, mushrooms, onions, and peppers on your next pizza.

• Make a simple salad with lettuces, tomatoes and a healthy addition of toasted walnuts or almonds. Follow this with grilled eggplant and zucchini with a drizzle of olive oil. And for dessert, enjoy a slice or two of melon with a handful of berries.

For Breakfast or in between meal filler always provide a fruit! Bananas, Apple Slices, Seedless Grapes, Pears Slices. If you eat dairy and your kids like to dip their fruit, yogurt works well! incorporate the fruit yoghurt into the meal Or handful of Raisins to a bowl of oatmeal.

Snack can be Veggie Time!! Cut up Celery, Carrots, Cucumbers, Bell Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes. Once again, a dip might be helpful or try hummus, or perhaps a great homemade dressing, a store bought salad dressing works fine too!

Multi-colored meals are a great way to get all your important nutrients without going hungry. Beef up any meal by adding a veggie from every color group for a filling, and satisfying healthy meal. 

The above suggested idea layout gives you at least 6 opportunities a day to eat a colourful fruit or vegetable! I really encourage parents to make this fun and keep it light, no pressure, no battles. If your child starts off by eating one colour a day that is a great start…you can build up to a rainbow over time.  Healthy bodies are made one bite at a time so celebrate every step towards the rainbow!

Once your family gets used to eating a rainbow a day you can start working towards eating two rainbows a day.