Eat The Rainbow Challenge

Eat The Rainbow is a new 2024 challenge for the Becoming Elli Community and the Fit Strong Women Over 50 podcast!

You can download the Eat The Rainbow checklist and information about why it’s important to Eat The Rainbow.

Eating the rainbow is an easy way to optimize your diet. Why is it important to EAT THE RAINBOW? Because colorful foods contain phytonutrients or plant compounds.

These compounds provide beneficial nutrients to us. They are found in plant foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes (beans), and whole grains.

Teas, herbs and spices also contain thousands of different phytonutrients.

Phytonutrients protect our health. Some phytonutrients help protect our cells from damage and some support the body’s natural detoxification processes. Others have anti-inflammatory or anticancer effects, or promote brain, heart, skin, eye, or liver health. Eating a wider variety of phytonutrients gives you a wider range of health benefits.

The color of plant foods comes from different phytonutrients. For example, red vegetables have different nutrients than green vegetables.

Typically, the darker the color, the higher the phytonutrient content. Once you get proficient at eating the rainbow, you might try to eat darker colors.

Try to eat 9 to 12 plants a day.  Remember that the rainbow includes fruits as well as vegetables but also includes nuts, seeds, beans, grains and spices.

Eating the rainbow means to try to eat at least one serving from each color group every day.

the more colors you can eat gives you a greater variety of phytonutrients.

One serving of vegetables is about ½ cup of cooked veggies or 1 cup of raw leafy greens; one serving of fruit is about ½ cup of fruit or one medium sized piece of fruit.