Mother Nature’s Magical Palette

If someone told you there are magic foods from Mother Nature that are not only among the most delectable she makes but help to improve brain health and memory, lower blood pressure, and reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease,* would you want to know what the foods are?

What if you didn’t need to know their names—you could just recognize them by their color?

Well here I am to tell you among my favorite of Mother Nature’s magic foods are blue, purple, dark red, and black. Their magic is their anthocyanins and antioxidants, natural plant pigments that prevent and repair cellular damage.

Now that you know this, dear heart, next time you buy onions, ignore the yellow and white and choose purply-red. I love red onions—in the skillet they turn translucent purple and they are not sharp but sweet.

Next time you buy grapes, skip the green and choose the darkest purple, garnet, or black.

Next time you buy apples, choose those with skins of deepest red.

Choose ruffled burgundy lettuce over plain-jane green, and pick up a peppery dark red radicchio.

Scarlet cabbage over white.

Purple cauliflower over cream or gold.

Purple corn when you can find it. Ditto purple carrots–what fun!

Keep an eggplant ready to cut into inch-size cubes and roast (with the skin on!) and stir into your pasta sauce.

Blueberries are a nutritional powerhouse. I know, they’re expensive…I do a trade-off, buy blueberries for our morning granola and no ice cream for supper’s dessert. Raspberries and blackberries are rarer treats around here. I splurge the days seniors get 10% off. (If a market near you does this kindness for old folks, maybe you could wear a grey wig…?)

While we’re talking berries, there’s another antioxidant, lycopene, which comes in strawberries, beets, tomatoes, red radishes, and watermelon. Lycopene improves heart health, decreases prostate and breast cancer risk, contributes to stroke prevention and increases brain function.* Whoa.

In their season, bring home the blood oranges, the darkest plums, the blackest figs, the darkest cherries, the purplest string beans, the reddest and purplest peppers (both sweet and hot), some purple tomatoes…and this time of year, a pomegranate or two, a kuri squash, purple sweet potatoes, blue boiling potatoes.

I remember on the mountain every summer and autumn I picked wild elderberries and made jelly…uniquely delicious. Black elderberries are among the richest in anthocyanins…

And a friend just told me about an article, “12 Common Apple Varieties That Are Red On the Inside” at kitchencuddle.com. Wonderful! Thanks, Deborah.

Then in the beans and rice section of your market, choose black beans, black rice, and black soybeans when you can find them.

Treat yourself to sips of dark grape juice, dark cherry juice, red wine…

The Mayo Clinic website mentions, “Research also suggests regularly eating blueberries may improve memory and delay age-related cognitive decline.** And by now blueberry tablets have proven value in helping prevent UTIs. How much can one little berry do?!

I mean, all this help for one’s body and deliciousness too.

Thank you, Ma’am…so much.

*https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/eat-the-rainbow-for-good-health. Accessed 10/20/2024.

** https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/the-power-of-blueberries. Accessed 10/20/2024.