Color me healthy

Vegetarian Times, Sept, 2002

The idea that a food's color is a good indication of its nutritional value continues to gain favor. In The Color Code, James A. Joseph of the Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University, Daniel A. Nadeau, MD, and Newsweek's Anne Underwood promote "pigment power," dividing fruits and vegetables into four color groups, each with its own dietary benefits.

What Color is Your Diet? by David Heber, MD, and dietitian Susan Bowerman, offers seven categories, including white wine in the white/green group, which includes garlic, onions, leeks, celery, pears and green grapes. Both books say that no matter how many servings of fruits and vegetables you get, you won't get enough nutrients if you skimp on any major color group--which beige-crazy Americans do. Today, in places such as New Guinea, Heber and Bowerman write, "we can still find hunter-gatherer populations who eat more than 800 varieties of plant foods." Americans eat fewer than 20.