eat more rainbows (go raw vegan!)

[Guest guest]

Your new year's resolution should be to eat one more rainbow each day

than you did last year. Legend suggests that a pot of gold can be

found at the end of each rainbow. That treasure can be cashed in to

preserve your good health and ward off future disease.

 

Society considers that which is white, to be pure. Such a belief can

be deceptive. By shining white light through a prism, one is

instantly blessed with the hidden beauty and complex nature of our

universe. A pure white beam of light reveals its inner essense.

 

Most people can name the seven visible colors of the rainbow's

spectrum. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Of

course, there are two other colors, often forgotten, but always

present, ultraviolet and infra- red.

 

Animals and insects feel these colors. Plants sense them too. While

we lack the same receptors and are blind to their existance, our

handicap cannot negate their influence.

 

The ultras and infras of plants are magical substances, indeed! They

include plant chemicals, or phyto chemicals, such as isoflavones and

bioflavinoids. Science teaches us that plants protect themselves from

attack with their own secretions and chemical messengers. Vegetables

repel insects who would eat them, and blossoms attract other insects

with a perfume so that their pollens can be spread and their species

self-propagate. Plants protect themselves from too much heat, or

cold, or wind, or too much moisture, maintaining their own good

health with their specialized hormones. Plants can cure their own

sicknesses and cancers by secreting and bathing themselves with these

enchanted essences.

 

When we eat the plants, we are similarly protected. Modern science

has confirmed the centuries-old traditions and lore from cultures

that refined the sacred techniques of using foods as medicine. We

have often heart that " an apple a day keeps the doctor away. " Such

wisdom!

 

Today's Perfect Rainbow

 

Eat foods of color. The perfect color can be found right in the

middle of our rainbow, the color green.

 

Eat green for wellness.

 

In the 1980s, scientists first began to explore how phytochemicals

prevent cancers. A great amount of emphasis was placed upon the

fruits and vegetables that contain vibrant colors. The best known of

these wonder drugs was recognized as beta carotene. That's what gives

carrots their bright orange hue.

 

In the 1990s, scientists at the University of Minnesota (Steinmetz,

et. al.) categorized different groups of fruits and vegetables

demonstrating life giving, disease fighting qualities. In doing so,

they defined some of those magic colors, and the phytochemicals so

contained within those pigments.

 

The violet, indigo and blues of the plant kingdom include phenols and

dithiolthiolnines contained in eggplant, cruciferous vegetables,

grapes, plums, and grains.

 

Eat onions and shallots, leeks, scallions and garlic for cancer-

fighting alliums. Those green leafy vegetables contain flavonoids,

and inositol is found in beans. Green fruits and veggies contain

phenols, and plant sterols, protease inhibitors and saponins.

 

Yellow limonines contained in citrus fruit and squash have also been

identified as cancer fighters, as have the orange carotines in

carrots, and my all-time favorite vitamin pill, the cantaloupe.

Balancing out the rainbow's spectrum would be the red phenols in

peppers, radishes, and tomatoes.

 

Tens of thousands of unique substances have been identified, and

there are still plant hormones and enzymes yet to be discovered.

 

Remarkably, the one plant containing the greatest amount of these

wonderful phytochemicals is the soybean. The tiny soybean contains

coumarins, flavonoids, inositol, isoflavones, lignans, phenols, plant

sterols, protease inhibitors, saponins, and Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils.

 

So, on new year's eve, visit your local produce store and treat

yourself and family to a rainbow. Make this a daily tradition never

to be broken. "

 

Robert Cohen, 12/30/05

http://www.notmilk.com

http://soulveggie.blogs.com/my_weblog/2006/01/new_years_resol.html