Day 299 - Food Rainbow Faves

Way way back in June of last year I put up this post about the notion and benefits of coloring your food. The skinny of that post was that the more colors your overall food intake is made up of the higher the probability that you are getting all of the vitamins types you need and as well getting the amount you need.

For myself I am all about variety as I am easily bored so eating from all colors of the food rainbow is natural for me. But it is not always easy either, sometimes you do have to give it a bit of thought and effort to get really colorful.

So lets look at my favorite foods of the various colors we have to choose from...

Red
Protein: Beef, Venison, Bear, Buffalo; yes I love me some red meat!
Fruit: Cherry;  more flavor per chew than any other fruit
Veggie: Tomato, hands down the greatest invention of the veggy kingdom
 
Yellow
Protein: Gouda Cheese, looks yellow'ish yo me
Fruit: Lemon, sour is sexy
Veggie: Yellow Mushroom Peppers; no not mushrooms (yuck!), these hard to find mushroom shaped peppers add zip

Green
Protein: Lima Bean; yep it is a veg, a veg packed with protein & tasty too!
Fruit: Kiwi; get that leathery brown skin off it and release a crazy cool combo of sweet & sour
Veggie: Cabbage; I am addicted to cole slow, what can I say, Slaw Me

Blue
Protein: Blue Cheese; more white than blue but whose counting
Fruit: Blue Berries; maybe they look purple to you but the label says BLUE
Veggie: Celery; filled with blue cheese and topped with blue berries, uh huh thats how I eat my celery!

Orange
Protein: Buffalo Wings; a gorgeous shared of orange when coated in a quality wing sauce
Fruit: Tangerine; Oranges may be bigger, but tangerines are badder (in a good way)
Veggie: Pumpkin; saying carrots would have been too easy, plus they are just so-so. Pumpkin is so-good
 
Purple
Protein: Purple Haze Cheese; yeah I know, a stretch here. Had it once in my life, it was ok, it was barely purple, give me a break on this one
Fruit: Plum; Ever had a plum smoothie? Why Not?!
Veggie: Belgian Endive; just typing that makes me feel so sophisticated

Brown
Protein: Nuts; there are so many but my fave is the almond by far
Fruit: Brown Banana; let that sucker over riped and them smoothie it
Veggie: Brownies filled with Brussels Spouts; don't knock it until you try it, and when you do let me know how it is because no way I am touching that

White
Protein: Halibut, I go back and forth between Walleye & Halibut as my fave fish, I'm so conflicted
Fruit: Jicama; styrofoam never tasted so good
Veggie: Shallots; Or shall I not?

Pink
Protein: Bacon; such a pretty color pink before it goes into the frying pan
Fruit: Watermelon; my fave fruit of all time
Veggie: Rhubarb; Yes it is a veg & not a fruit even though the USA classifies it as a fruit for tax reasons

 

My stomach has grumbled and moaned throughout the writing of this post, I must go feed it now.

Hit me up with your color faves.

 
 
Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 73 - Coloring Salad

Set your go-back-goggles for two months ago. That is about the time I was in a blog chat about vitamins and whether daily vitamin pills are necessary. Oh we debated other supplements like protein powders and amino acids and the like too. But I've always remembered that discussion for those who were against getting their vitamins from pills. While not completely surprising it did challenge a stereotype I had for healthy people; that a majority used supplements, at least vitamins, daily.

In fact many stated they use no supplements of any kind. Intrigued I wondered just how they could be so bold. I mean, how can modern people not get and stay healthy from some sort of help from the diet & supplement industry?

I basically asked them that question. Those that were anti-vitamin pills had a common answer to how they get the vitamins they need. "From food", was the quick reply of a few.

OK, raise your hand if that was news to you in any way. Anyone, I didn't think so. If you did raise your hand don't feel stupid, I am about to do you one better.

Being fearless from behind the safety of my mouse and keyboard I challenged these anti-vitamin takers, our conversation went something like this...

"Counting calories let alone the nutrition content of what you eat is insane. That has to take hours to get it sorted so you end the day with a balanced vitamin intake. You can't be sure you are getting your vitamins!", I roared.

"Oh no, it isn't insane, I don't count calories.", the lead voice of the opposition calmly replied.

"Huh, OK, you buy all pre-packaged stuff, someone else does it for you, right?" I insisted still in disbelief.

"LOL", was the first answer I got.

"Nope, those are worse than using on vitamins and supplements", another insisted. A couple of other said similar.

"No, just from food. But we color our food, that's how we know", was the answer I took note of after a few more LOL's.

Remember I told those of you that raised your hand earlier I was about to do you one better; here it is...

"You color your food, you mean like dying Easter eggs?" I asked.

After a mess of LOLs, ROTFLOL, LMAO, etc. eventually someone took pity on me and explained in simply.

"Eat a salad once a day. That salad should contain as many different colored foods as you can find. Do the same other meals too. If you have three items on your dinner plate, don't let them all be brown or white", she shared.

In a nut shell, the more colors your overall food intake is made up of the higher the probability that you are getting all of the vitamins types you need and as well getting the amount you need.

So the smart ass in me really wanted to answer back that Big Mac must have six or seven colors in it, must be chocked full of good stuff, right? I thought I would have been in my right to ask that after the avalanche of LOLs I endured. However, I did ask the Easter egg question, so I refrained.

Instead I left the conversation enlightened. I knew enough about food from previous missions where I had counted stuff to know that a carrot is good for vitamin A, that an egg brings in the vitamins D & B,  that celery delivers the vitamin K, and I could go on.

Regardless of getting validation from the science behind the theory it maks sense to me. And more importantly is sounded so unbelievably simple. The holy grail ingredient of success; make it simple and it will be done!

So, there you see the picture of my salad. You don't see much green but the lettuce is there underneath all the rest of those colors. Purple onions, Orange carrots, White hard boiled, Beige garbanzo beans, Yellow corn, Black beans, Red bell pepper and red cherry tomatoes, Green-sort-of peppercinos, and whatever color tuna is.

Do you color your food?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 19 - Supplement It?

Yesterday was a great day as it was my wife's birthday. We had a good time celebrating her notching of another year even though we each included a slice of birthday pie in the celebration. Got a work out in yesterday which I hadn't planned as time made itself available, cool. But today, today I am feeling more hungry than I have in many a day. Could it be that slight slip off the health-wagon with piece of pie that has my system hearing to the hunger pains more today? That is my guess. Whatever the cause they can make all the noise they want, I am not listening though.

Been pondering what else I might need to consider down the road to help my progress, or maintain it, or in general improve my health period. Nutritional supplements seems to be a gaba-gazillion dollar industry which means people are buying and using. Myself, other than a multi vitamin a couple times a week ( I rarely remember to take one ) and the recent use of a protein shake or bar as I've started my mission here, other than that I am not making the supplement industries stock tick upwards. I did some reading on the what's out there to see if I am missing the boat and I really can't tell. Seems more support for using them than not, but no real consensus on what to use and when or really why. Part of the confusion, at least for me, is that there are so many different supplements. Thousands of vitamins, minerals, oils and combinations of them. Powders, liquids, gels, oh my! Some of my favorites as I read, Ginkgo biloba; sounds like what I order in a Chinese restaurant. Chondroitin, wasn't that one of the monsters in those bad Japanese films that battled Godzilla?

Not sure any of these are really needed if I eat balanced meals. But then maybe my diet isn't as balanced as it should be at the vitamin & mineral level. How about you, do you take supplements routinely to shore up your diet?

Thursday is here; does anyone ever care about Thursday? We all look forward to Friday. Then Wednesday, hump-day, gets some cheer as it is the halfway mark to the weekend. But Thursday, which could be seen as Friday Eve, gets no real love does it. No idea why I thought of that and no more reason why I thought to jot that down here. Good mood I guess.

Happy Friday Eve to all!

Responsibility 199... Gotta Do It!!