When choosing good food, consider which ingredients are whole and unprocessed. Regarding the rainbow diet, the colors on your dinner table should be as rich as a rainbow. Green nourishes the liver, red nourishes the heart, white nourishes the lungs, black nourishes the kidneys, and yellow nourishes the spleen and stomach. Traditional Chinese medicine has carefully studied the relationship between the organs and the colors of the ingredients. Oriental medicine is all about balance.
A cast iron pot (or a clay pot) is suitable for cooking vegetable soup. Put in some hard-to-cook and sweet ingredients such as onions, burdocks, corn, yams, carrots, enoki mushrooms, black fungus, and pumpkin, and then add in some green vegetables that are less resistant to cooking when the hard ones are done so that you can eat every color in the rainbow diet and make your body happy.
For more crude fiber and nutrients, it is better to brush and clean root vegetables thoroughly with running water and not to peel off the skin. Then, cut them into pieces and cook them together. This pot of vegetable soup warms the body and heart. It can fill you up without worrying about excessive calories. In addition, it can stimulate gastrointestinal motility, help digestion and bowel movement, and promote blood circulation and metabolism.
To retain the complete nutrition of the ingredients and reduce the burden of detoxification on the body, in terms of temperature when cooking any food, it is best to simmer it at a low temperature, slightly above 100°C. High temperatures of 200° or 300° will make the ingredients produce complex qualitative changes, some of which are carcinogenic, and some turn into unnecessary toxins for the body to absorb. When the cooking temperature reaches 130°, the nutrition of various ingredients will begin to be damaged, and this is equivalent to eating “empty calories.” You get only calories, but no nutrients.
If possible, reduce the frequency of high-temperature deep-frying, sautéing, and grilling in your daily diet and replace them with low-temperature baking, boiling, and cold salad. Save good dishes like German pork knuckles and Wellington steak cooked at high temperatures for special occasions. Search for recipes using the keywords “smoke-free” and “low-temperature cooking,” and you will find more inspiration for different dishes.
A rainbow diet strengthens your immune system
According to Western nutrition research, long-term adoption of the “rainbow diet” to consume various nutrients is like helping your body’s immune system enhance its fighting power, making challenging cancers less likely to develop. Just as ultraviolet and infrared rays in the light spectrum have individual uses, each food color has a unique nutritional value in the rainbow diet.
For example, red food makes people youthful and rosy. Lycopene, iron, and vitamin A can resist oxidation and protect the body from free radical damage. Red food is primarily related to the health of blood vessels. Regular consumption of tomatoes, goji berries, red dates, carrots, cranberries, Okinawan spinach, red bell peppers, and red meats can help replenish hematopoietic energy, maintain blood vessel elasticity, and promote blood circulation.
Orange and yellow foods correspond to the health of the eyes and skin. Lemons and citrus fruits are rich in vitamin C, essential for maintaining the body’s normal functioning. Green foods are recognized as contributing to liver health in both Eastern and Western medical circles. Green foods include a variety of green vegetables as well as tea. Drinking tea to supplement catechins can help eliminate free radicals. It is rare to see tea drinkers looking old. People who know how to drink tea, even if they are old, will probably age healthily.
Blue and purple foods are less common than green foods, so you must look hard for them. Blueberries, purple rice, sweet potatoes, purple yams, eggplants, and butterfly peas are all included. The anthocyanins in blue and purple foods are essential to the body’s antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting functions. As for white food, it corresponds to bones. White rice, milk, eggs, fish, and soy products provide protein and calcium to repair and develop bones and body tissues. Without it, these functions will be impaired.
Good habits take time to develop. If you make small changes every day, your health will accumulate gradually. Use wisdom and creativity to make eating pleasant and good for your body by changing to a rainbow diet.
Translated by Cecilia and edited by Amanda
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