One Way to Get Your Kids Eating More Veggies - the Rainbow

The plant kingdom is abundant in beautiful colors -- a range of purples and blues, shades of greens, yellow, orange, white, brown and red.  Not only do these colors create beautiful works of art, but the colors themselves have health promoting properties as well.  

For example, orange fruits and veggies such as yams, oranges, pumpkins and mangoes are full of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant and immune system strengthener.  

Dark leafy green veggies such as kale and collard greens are high in folate which is essential for cell building and genetic material.

Red plants contain lycopene, a cancer fighter; purple and blue plants have anthocyanins which destroy free radicals and white foods such as garlic and onions contain allyl sulfides which fight caner cells too.

Plus… all of these foods are naturally low in calories, fat, contain zero cholesterol and all of them contain fiber!  Whole plant foods are essential for your health and weight loss goals!

Remembering to 'eat the rainbow' is a simple way for you and your children to learn about and eat more of these whole, plant foods.  

I've taught almost more than 2,500 children from K-12th grade about the importance of eating the different colors and students had a lot of fun doing so.

If your child is pre-K to 1st grade, you can have them gather different fruits and vegetables into their respective color groups.  You can do this at home, at the grocery store, at the farmer's market, in the garden or while unpacking groceries.  

For older students, I've used bingo boards with different colored columns.  Each block within a color column has a fruit of veggies picture on it.  As the bingo caller, you call out a color column and a random fact about a particular fruit or veggie in that column.  The students raise their hand to guess which plant they think it is.

These games are even better if you get to eat a rainbow meal as well such as fruit salad or a veggie wrap with hummus or avocado after the game.  

Take Control Now

Are you eating the rainbow everyday?  Are your grandkids?  What's one way you can incorporate more colors into your daily diet?

Answer in the comments section below.