Nutrients in Food Colors
Activities for Kids
Color it nutritious! Teach your children that a colorful plate means lots of “grow foods” (See Tips for Grocery Shopping With Your Child). What a beautiful array of colorful fruits and vegetables! You can use this eyeful of color to your advantage by teaching your child to choose naturally colorful foods. The brightest colors are found in produce that is in season, fresh, and eaten raw or lightly steamed.
• Play a color-matching game. What’s in the reds? Why is it good for you?
• Send your children out on a color-finding mission. When you’re in the supermarket produce section assign one child orange and green, and another child gets the job of choosing two yellows! This can also be an excellent way of introducing new foods and getting variety into the family diet.
• The vitamin game. When you serve fruits and vegetables, ask your children what vitamins and minerals they are high in, and why these are good for them.
• Have children color the fruits and vegetables. Then have them paste them on a sheet of paper in groups according to their colors.
• Have children draw pictures of food on paper plates. Are all the food groups represented? Use colorful markers.
• Ask your children what color foods they ate today. Talk about each food and its color. “Did you eat your yummy yellows and great greens today?”
• Create a “rainbow lunch,” a tray full of colorful foods cut into bite-sized servings.
• Kids remember colors. To get your children to appreciate the nutrient value of foods, teach them that colors mean healthy foods, or, in kid-language, “grow foods.” Remind them: “Did you get your reds today?”
Healthy Colors
| Colors | Food Sources | Nutrients | Health Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red | tomatoes tomato sauce watermelon guava juice red peppers | Lycopene Beta carotene Vitamin C | Lycopene is a potent antioxidant and is one of the top ten anticancer carotenoids. It has been linked to reductions in the risk of prostate cancer. Anthocyanins have anti- cancer properties. Red peppers contain much more beta carotene (and more vitamin C) than green peppers. |
| Pink | pink grapefruit | Lycopene beta carotene | Like lycopene, beta carotene is an antioxidant that is good for the eyes. It also reduces the risk of cancers and cardiovascular disease. |
| Orange or deep yellow | apricots and peaches (especially dried) sweet potato carrots pumpkin winter-squash mango yellow-peppers | Beta carotene vitamin C | Some orange/yellow vegetables, such as pumpkin and summer squash, contain the phytonutrient, lutein, which helps protect against degeneration of eye structure with aging. Carotenoids, like beta carotene, are the phytos that protect plants from sun damage. Perhaps they do the same for humans. |
| Dark green | kale, other “greens” asparagus watercress spinach broccoli parsley-fresh dill-fresh romaine lettuce zucchini green peppers | Beta carotene | Dark green foods are rich in antioxidants. |
| Blue or dark purple | blueberries bilberries cherries grapes red wine plums purple cabbage | Anthocyanin | The pigment anthocyanin has anti-cancer properties. |
| Black or dark red | black beans kidney beans | Calcium Iron | Black beans are higher in fiber and calcium; red beans contain slightly more iron. |
Dr. Sears, or Dr. Bill as his “little patients” call him, has been advising busy parents on how to raise healthier families for over 40 years. He received his medical training at Harvard Medical School’s Children’s Hospital in Boston and The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, the world’s largest children’s hospital, where he was associate ward chief of the newborn intensive care unit before serving as the chief of pediatrics at Toronto Western Hospital, a teaching hospital of the University of Toronto. He has served as a professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto, University of South Carolina, University of Southern California School of Medicine, and University of California: Irvine. As a father of 8 children, he coached Little League sports for 20 years, and together with his wife Martha has written more than 40 best-selling books and countless articles on nutrition, parenting, and healthy aging. He serves as a health consultant for magazines, TV, radio and other media, and his AskDrSears.com website is one of the most popular health and parenting sites. Dr. Sears has appeared on over 100 television programs, including 20/20, Good Morning America, Oprah, Today, The View, and Dr. Phil, and was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine in May 2012. He is noted for his science-made-simple-and-fun approach to family health.