We often hear that we should eat more fruit and vegetables, but there is another important part of healthy eating that can easily be overlooked: variety.
Take a look at your shopping trolley or dinner plate. Do you tend to buy the same vegetables and fruit every week?
There is nothing wrong with having favourites, but adding more colours and variety to your diet can expose you to a broader range of nutrients and naturally occurring plant compounds.
One simple way to think about this is to eat the rainbow.
Why are fruit and vegetables different colours?
The beautiful reds, greens, oranges, yellows and purples found in plant foods aren’t there just to make your dinner look good.
Plants contain naturally occurring compounds known as phytochemicals. Different plant foods contain different combinations of these compounds, including carotenoids, flavonoids and polyphenols.
Many plant foods also provide nutrients and compounds with antioxidant activity.
Rather than becoming too focused on one particular “superfood”, a practical approach is to regularly eat a wide variety of colourful whole foods.
What do the different colours offer?
🌿 Green
Think broccoli, spinach, leafy greens, avocado, kiwi, green beans and herbs.
Green vegetables can provide nutrients including folate, vitamin C, vitamin K and fibre, although the amounts vary between foods.
🍅 Red
Tomatoes, red capsicum, strawberries, raspberries and watermelon are easy ways to bring more red to your plate.
Red plant foods contain a variety of phytochemicals. Tomatoes and watermelon, for example, are well known as sources of the carotenoid lycopene.
🥕 Orange and yellow
Carrots, pumpkin, sweet potato, oranges, mandarins and yellow capsicum can brighten up almost any meal.
Many orange vegetables contain carotenoids, including beta-carotene, which the body can convert into vitamin A.
🫐 Blue and purple
Blueberries, blackberries, purple cabbage, plums, grapes and eggplant all count.
Many blue, purple and red plant foods contain pigments called anthocyanins, which belong to the flavonoid family of plant compounds.
🧄 White and brown
They might not technically be colours of the rainbow, but don’t leave them off your plate.
Cauliflower, mushrooms, onions and garlic provide their own nutrients and plant compounds, making them valuable additions to a varied diet.
What does variety have to do with your gut?
Colour is only part of the story.
Inside your digestive system lives a huge community of microorganisms, collectively known as the gut microbiome.
Your diet is one of the factors that can influence this community. Just as we benefit from eating a varied diet, our gut microorganisms are exposed to different nutrients depending on the foods we eat.
This is where fibre and plant diversity become particularly interesting.
Different plant foods contain different types and combinations of dietary fibre and other carbohydrates. Some of these reach the large intestine, where they can be fermented by gut bacteria.
During this fermentation process, certain gut bacteria produce compounds called short-chain fatty acids, including butyrate. These compounds play important roles in the normal functioning of the gut, including providing an energy source for cells lining the colon.
This is one reason variety can matter. Rather than relying on the same two or three vegetables every day, eating a broader range of vegetables, fruits, legumes, wholegrains, nuts and seeds provides your gut microbes with a greater variety of fibres and plant compounds.
A diverse and balanced gut microbiome is associated with aspects of digestive and overall health, although researchers are still learning exactly what constitutes an “ideal” microbiome for each individual.
So when you’re thinking about feeding yourself well, it can be useful to think about feeding your gut microbes too.
And you don’t need to make dramatic changes.
Try rotating the vegetables you buy, choosing different coloured fruit, adding beans or lentils to meals, experimenting with different wholegrains, or sprinkling nuts and seeds over breakfast.
If your current diet is relatively low in fibre, increase it gradually and make sure you’re drinking adequate fluids. Suddenly adding large amounts of fibre can leave some people feeling uncomfortable.
Try the 3-colour challenge
Here’s an easy place to start this week.
At one meal each day, look at your plate and count the naturally occurring colours.
Can you get at least three different colours onto your plate?
Once that becomes easy, start experimenting with foods you don’t normally buy.
You don’t need a perfect diet. The goal is simply to make variety a normal part of the way you eat.
Is your diet working for you?
General healthy-eating advice is a useful starting point, but nutrition isn’t necessarily one-size-fits-all.
Some people experience bloating, digestive discomfort or notice that they don’t feel their best after eating particular foods. Others may find that increasing certain foods doesn’t agree with them.
If you’re regularly experiencing digestive discomfort after eating, you may start wondering whether a particular food could be contributing. Food intolerances can be difficult to identify on your own, particularly when you’re eating many different foods throughout the day.
Rather than unnecessarily removing multiple foods from your diet, it can be helpful to take a more considered look at what you’re eating, when symptoms occur and whether there are any patterns.
At Capalaba Natural Health, we can assist working out what foods your body doesn’t like by a Food Intolerance test. The IgG panel tests the 96 most common foods and so you know what foods to focus on.
Wondering whether certain foods might not agree with you? Contact Capalaba Natural Health to book a consultation and discuss your concerns.
Results vary from person to person. Information is general in nature and is not intended as medical advice.
