Eat the Rainbow Nutrition Rule

I never feel “recharged” after vacation. Instead, I feel tired and drained. Judging by the conversations I’ve had with friends, I’m not the only one. “I live tired,” a colleague told me the other day when I mentioned that the beginning of autumn always feels exhausting to me. While I try to comply with the basics of healthy living such as eating a balanced diet and getting enough physical exercise, I know fail in other ways: I’m not great at controlling my stress and I don’t always get a full eight hours of sleep.

Personal struggles aside, this is the time of the year when many of us feel depressed and fatigued. And not solely because of Seasonal Affective Disorder—which, is definitely a very real thing. “After summer, it’s also necessary to detoxify; to ease the excesses that come with a summer of alcohol, poor sleep, and being out of a routine,” explains Catalina Fernández de Ana Portela, PhD, who is a biologist, mycologist, and the CEO of the medicinal mushroom supplement brand Hyphae da Terra. “Toxins gather in the liver and blood, loading the lymphatic system.”

Eating the rainbow

To that end, she recommends putting into practice something she calls “the rainbow rule.” Best of all, it’s pretty easy to follow: you simply consume as many different colored fruits and vegetables as possible at each meal. As registered dietitian nutritionist and GI-expert April Panitz of New York-based Amenta Nutrition puts it, you “eat the rainbow.”

To get the most out of the concept, Fernández de Ana Portela recommends aiming for 30 different types of fruits and vegetables over the course of each week for 30 days. She says this helps us get out of our usual dietary ruts and expand our nutritional intake. “It is important not to always be eating apples or lettuce,” she explains. “We need a very rich combination of varied fruits and vegetables because each provides us with different minerals and vitamins. That is the basis of a healthy diet,” she says.

According to research, fruits and vegetables provide benefits beyond helping us achieve our basic nutrient requirements. “The scientific evidence for providing public health recommendations to increase fruit and vegetable consumption for prevention of disease is strong,” found one analysis. “Current evidence suggests that fruits and vegetables have the strongest effects in relation to prevention of cardiovascular disease.” The analysis also stated that fruits and vegetables “particularly cruciferous vegetables, dark-green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, and dark-colored berries,” tend to beneficially impact the outcomes of chronic disease. Not to mention, eating an adequate amount of fruits and vegetables will naturally amp up your fiber intake, which is essential for keeping your digestive system moving and eliminating toxins.