We all need some fun in our lives, don’t we? So why not start with your plate? You also reap many health benefits along the way.

Repeatedly eating the same foods is not conducive to health. If your breakfast looks the same every day, your lunches are made up with the same ingredients day in day out and your dinners are starting to bore you, then you need to up your game with more variety!

Think of the bright colours of the rainbow and start injecting some of those into your meals. Explore different types of foods within each colour spectrum – what can you find that you like? What new foods and flavours can you try? Any naturally colourful food counts, e.g. veggies, fruits, berries, pulses, herbs and spices, nuts and seeds…

Become more aware of different varieties of foods, including old heirloom varieties, and start adding spice to your life, literally, with different flavour and antioxidant-packed spice powders!

Click the image to open the BANT Eat a Rainbow handout

But why bother?

Variety and colour on the plate adds interest and beauty to your meal times.⁣⁣⁣⁣ Read more on why counting calories is futile and why counting (or paying more attention to) colours is a better way to improve your health.

A varied diet provides numerous nutrients required for all the hundreds and hundreds of processes and functions that the body has to accomplish every single day.

Adding different types of foods and colours to your meals guarantees that all those beneficial nutrients have their buddies around that they need in order to work in synergy to create the effects we need for optimal health, for reducing the risk of disease and for protecting us from any invaders.

Dietary Diversity leads to microbial diversity in the gut, which in turn creates an optimal environment in the digestive tract and in the whole body, for us to be able thrive in our lives.

Exposure to a wide variety of foods may also help lower the chances of developing food allergies and intolerances.

Get out of your comfort zone!

Be brave to try new foods and foods that you are not a huge fan of. Your taste buds have most probably changed since you decided you didn’t like a certain food, and you can always try such foods cooked in a different way or with other foods to make them more tasty. Remember it takes several times of trying a new food for our taste buds to adjust so don’t give in too early, be confident with your experimentations. We can really train and educate our taste buds so that eventually we’ll start liking (if not loving!) foods we may previously have hated! I promise!

A good way to start adding variety and interest without overwhelm is to add just one more (a spoonful of spice powder, one extra vegetable, a different type of food, another colour…).

Are you adding just one more?⁣⁣⁣ 

This was my glorious diversity lunch after my 16-hour overnight fast yesterday. I had some homegrown lettuce, rocket and nasturtium leaves and flowers in a salad bowl. Drizzled over some shop-bought beetroot sauce. I had this salad with my sardine guacamole, into which I threw spices, herbs and other flavour ingredients to make it more interesting, tasty and packed full of antioxidants and phytonutrients.

Here are some of my other recipes for you to try:

Eat the whole rainbow in one meal

Breakfast porridge with a twist, or my ‘pimped up’ porridge

Sweet potato and plantain brownies

Thai salmon patties

Chicken soup for the soul and body

Olive and pepper tapenade

And if you haven’t seen my Effortlessy Healthy eBook yet, you can download it here. It’s full of meal prep ideas and several yummy recipes.

Have fun enjoying the rainbow!