Photo by Jannis Brandt via Uplash.

If you’re anything like me, you might find it easy to fall into a boring and redundant dietary routine. Personally, I love trying new foods, but I often only think to do so when dining out or traveling—neither of which I do frequently as a full-time student with a full-time job. It was only after I read a Healthline article describing the benefits of “eating the rainbow” that I truly realized how dull and colorless my diet had become. Since my realization, adding more diversity to my dietary selection has brought on a number of benefits I’m eager to share with you in this article!

A colorful diet comes with health benefits:

Did you know that diversity in vitamins and minerals is correlated with the color of your food? While eating fruits and vegetables is commonly understood as the ideal strategy to maximize vitamin intake, slimming down your color selection can deprive you of nutrients you might not be getting anywhere else. Here are a few key insights to keep in mind when selecting your produce, courtesy of Healthline:

Red produce is anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, may help lower risk of heart disease and certain cancers and may help reduce sun-related skin damage. 

Yellow and orange produce is anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, supports eye health and may help lower risk of heart disease and cancer. 

Green produce is anti-inflammatory and antioxidant; cruciferous veggies in particular may help lower risk of cancer and heart disease. 

Blue and purple produce is anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, may help improve brain function and may help lower risk of heart disease, neurological disorders, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers.

Dark red produce is anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, may help support athletic performance through increased oxygen uptake, may help lower risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and certain cancers

White and brown produce is anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and may help lower risk of heart disease, colon cancer and other cancers.

According to the National Library of Medicine, a diet containing a vast selection of colorful biolative pigments in fruits and vegetables is linked to positive health outcomes regarding body weight, lipid profile, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, mortality, type 2 diabetes and cancer. 

A colorful diet encourages you to try new foods:

After beginning to practice mindfulness in my diet’s color palette, I quickly noticed that I rarely eat blue or purple foods. As someone who prefers savory foods and saving money, solving this problem with an excess amount of blueberries and blackberries did not seem feasible. As an alternative, I’ve discovered that I really enjoy beet kraut as a sandwich topping along with my usual sauerkraut!

Likewise, yellow and orange foods rarely make their way onto my dinner plate, which encouraged me to recently try yams for the first time. My family wasn’t very fond of sweet vegetables, so foods like sweet potatoes and pumpkins were a rarity. Now, I have been making yam and tofu bowls as part of my regular meal prep—which has become one of my favorite things to eat.

From regional, in-season produce to exotic fruits you didn’t know existed, there are very few limits in selection thanks to the wonders of modern agriculture. You might as well take advantage! What foods do you think you might be missing out on?

A colorful diet promotes well-being:

While subjective, it has been my experience that visually appealing meals make my life feel less bland and more vibrant. The enchantment of a colorful selection of food brings positivity into my life at every step of the process, whether at the grocery store surrounded by a vivid selection or at home preparing my plate with a sense of elation. Pair this appreciation for edible radiance with the sense of adventure and tangible health benefits as mentioned earlier and the result is a profound sense of holistic well-being.

Final thoughts:

Each time I prepare a meal, I now challenge myself to incorporate every color of the rainbow. Doing so has helped me find a new sense of both creativity and balance within my diet. If you find yourself lacking proper nutrients, void of fresh inspiration, or simply feeling bored and underwhelmed with your diet or surroundings, perhaps introducing some color into your diet is the change in pace you didn’t know you were looking for! 

This kind of repression has clearly left some students angsty. Even though many students have nothing profound to say and in fact wouldn’t engage in large-scale political movements regularly, the fact that they can’t makes the idea much more attractive. Some students have even taken to civil disobedience, albeit unsuccessfully.

Thursday, March 24, five masked people staged a sit-in in the dining hall. The protest lasted six minutes. The group held signs displaying phrases including: “Meat is Murder”; “Would you eat your cat with barbecue sauce?!”; “Animals are people, too”; and, my personal favorite, “NO cheez, pleez.”

Apparently, this anonymous group is morally opposed to the eating of meat, dairy, eggs and other animal byproducts. It is still unclear how they meet their daily protein needs.

One of the protesters allowed me to ask him some questions. However, he refused to reveal his identity.

“I just don’t understand why people don’t understand why meat is bad, you know?! We just love the environment and animals and, honestly, human rights, you know,” he said.

I asked if he was aware of any arguments for free-range or small scale farming and how they reduce the environmental and animal rights necessities of veganism.

“I don’t know. Honestly, usually, if people start to disagree with me, I just say, ‘But have you given anything up for what YOU believe?!’” he said. “Like sometimes people try to start asking me what my political views are, like how I feel about gun control or whatever, so I just say, ‘Well, I’m vegan.’”

While the people involved in the sit-in continue to refuse to come forward, there are some conspiracy theories as to who they are floating around campus.

“I mean, I only know five people who would actually admit to being vegan,” said Erin Melton, sophomore and well-known campus carnivore.

One of the five protesters tried to throw red paint on a fellow student asking for a hamburger, but she was too weak to lift the bucket.

All photos by Chandler Eaton