Variety is the spice of life!
Who wants to be bland and boring!
Who only has one dress? One T-shirt, ONE pair of shoes?
There’s no way anyone has one pair of shoes, I don’t believe you. I mean we need one pair for ‘running’ (let’s be generous and call it running) and one for walking, one for working out and one for work, one for comfy and one for partying and a pair that only goes with that sexy red dress. At LEAST!
When it comes to shoes we all seem to inherently have a recognition that more is better, color is divine, and you need variety to express all the facets of you, you need variety to fulfil all the functions your busy, wonderful life requires of you.
Consider the state of your plate
What happens to that love of variety when it comes to the food on your plate? I want you to consider the state of your plate. How’s it looking? How many colors are represented there? How many shapes and sizes, textures? Are you expressing all the facets of your nutritional requirements and fulfilling the functions of your magnificent body?
Different foods have different nutrients, and we need them ALL.
So if you only eat a few foods, you are only getting the nutrients contained in those foods.
And if you eat only a few foods, chances are higher that you’re getting too much of something.
Instead, as my Mum always said, eat a little of everything, and you’ll get enough of everything and not too much of anything. Or thereabouts.
VARIETY is the spice of life folks and without it we will be pale, sickly, lacklustre versions of the bright, energetic, radiant beings we’re supposed to be.
And here’s where I’m supposed to list off all the colors and their nutritional properties – lycopene, carotene, anthocyanin, chlorophyll… but honestly, I think we have lost connection to our instincts about food as it is.
I feel like we have been disenfranchised in our own health, we are so confused as to what’s good and bad, and where do I get vitamin B from that we feel under qualified to make appropriate food decisions. And even when we do make a decision some expert, neighbor or TV ad will likely tell us it was the wrong one for a multitude of reasons.
Personally I don’t believe you need to know the compositional breakdown of the chemical compounds inherent in a food to reap the health benefits.
Nutrition shouldn’t be this hard
Nutrition should be about nourishing this magnificent body as well as your glorious soul. Nourishment should make you happy. It should be lip-smackingly good AND also healthful.
Nourishment is about loving self, honoring what the body needs as well as what your mind wants and finding the balance there. It’s about cleaning out the toxins and putting in the nutrients that are the driving force, the fuel, the spark for every function in your body.
Nourishment isn’t some mathematical equation of carbs in versus exercise out, it’s not about counting calories and weighing your meal, and you kinda don’t need to be an expert on what foods have anthocyanins and what they do for you.
Besides,
Mother Nature already worked all this out for us
She puts just the right doses of the things that go best together into different foods. So instead of firing more information and science gobbledy-data at you, I’m gonna trust you to maybe trust nature on this one.
You can be sure that if you eat a broad range of organic fruits and vegetables, with sensible portions of free range/organic proteins, carbs and fats – then you’re getting a little bit of everything and not too much of anything.
And yeah, I say organic, because sadly our food supply is a little out of kilter (putting it lightly). It’s undernourished and overly toxic (see Nutrition why Should I care, and GMO’s what the heck are those, or New Information on GMOs and Glyphosate in Food for more insight on this) but again, Mother Nature’s got you covered there too.
You don’t have to know all the science of GMOs and chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers, – if you buy organic produce, you’re not getting any of that stuff. You’re getting foods grown the way Nature meant us to grow them, and giving yourself a much better shot at getting the most nutrient density and the least toxicity.
So jazz up your plate.
Don’t eat a meal that doesn’t have at least 3 colors represented – think about all the beautiful variety we’ve been given. We have purple foods! PURPLE, Blue, red, green, yellow, orange, white, brown, even black!
Holy moly that’s exciting. Think of the wonderful ways you can express yourself with all that color! Your body will love you for it.
