‘Eating the rainbow” is an excellent maxim by which to fill your belly. The easier on the eye your plateful is, the more enjoyable it will be to eat – and the more nourishing, too. All of which is good news for anyone following the advice to eat 30 plants a week for the sake of your gut.
Nutritionists have long extolled the goodness of what they call phytonutrients: a group of at least 5,000 compounds that are responsible for the colours, flavours and scents of the plants we eat. As Evangeline Mantzioris, a food scientist at the University of South Australia, has shown, carotenoids tend to make things red, orange or yellow and anthocyanins (among others) make things blue and purple. The green in your veg, meanwhile, is due not only to chlorophyll, but also to catechins, phytosterols, nitrates and other chemicals.
