The quickest and most simple tip to increase your food nutrients is to make sure you serve up a plate of food with lots of colour! Ever watched a TV program called 'you are what you eat'? Well, in this program they get a detailed list of all the foods consumed over a week by their overweight participants. Then they put the whole weeks worth of food they consumed on tables for the participant to look at. It is amazing. Why? Not only is there heaps of food, but it is mostly beige, brown and yellowy in colour because it is mostly fried (loaded with fats). What colours would your weeks worth of food be?

I make this suggestion -

When you make a meal, or buy a takeaway (yes, you can buy fast foods), you should make sure there are plenty of different coloured foods in the meal so you are more likely to have a greater variety of food nutrients. 'Subway' can be a great takeaway option, because you get fresh bread, no butter, mostly salads (of your choice), low fat meat options, low fat condiments of your choice and toasted so the cheese melts. The overall flavour is fantastic and it is fresh!

Colourful meals have more varieties of "food nutrients".

Examples of coloured foods -

Green:
Lettuce, kiwi fruit, grapes, avocadoes, spinach, parsley, mint, broccoli, beans, spring onions, bok choy, asparagus, celery, etc.

Red:
Watermelon, cherries, tomatoes, red bell peppers (capsicums), beets, strawberries, raspberries, radishes, etc.

Yellow:
Corn, squash, pineapple, banana, star fruit, lemons, butter beans, yellow bell peppers (capsicums), etc.

Orange:
Pumpkin, carrots, orange bell peppers (capsicums), apricots, oranges, sweet potato, peaches, tangerines, mango, etc.

White:
Cauliflower, onion, turnip, pears, potatoes, etc.

Blue/Purple:
Grapes, plums, blueberries, onions, cabbage, eggplant, potatoes (yes... purple spuds), prunes, raisins, figs, etc.

Obviously you would be stretching yourself somewhat to try and get all of these colours on the plate at once, but the objective is to get as many different colours as you can so you are getting as many different food nutrients as you can. Over a day you will be surprised how many different coloured foods you can eat.

Experiment

Next time you are in a burger restaurant or your favourite takeaway, I want you to 'dissect your meal'.

Example: Say you order:
1 x Medium Fries
1 x Standard Burger
1 x Soft Drink
1 x Caramel Sundae

Now, pull it all apart and put it into colours. Like... all the greens go in one heap, all the reds in another heap and the browns in another heap, etc. It will be a bit of a shock to see it there in front of you because most of this meal is brownish and yellowish. Fact is... any meal you eat should be 'mostly green and coloured'. You will immediately be able to see the imbalance. And when the food you eat is imbalanced, your body becomes imbalanced too; hence the excess weight.