You May Have Heard “We Eat With Our Eyes First.”

Cook with a rainbow of colors. You’ve heard the saying “We eat with our eyes first.” Choose to make your food more colorful. This tip makes your diet more interesting with a variety of colorful fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains. Here are a few ideas you might try. When using a basic yellow or white onion, try adding a red onion or some green onion maybe a shallot. Instead of just green bell peppers, splurge and get a red and/or yellow bell pepper. Use celery, (always the darker the green, the better), and carrot (unless used raw is usually peeled, otherwise the peeling may turn dark when cooking). Use different colors of squash, like green Italian zucchini, yellow zucchini, and white zucchini (light green) or called Mexican squash. Experiment with butternut squash, spaghetti squash. Try different colors of potatoes instead of the same kind of white every time. You may be amazed to find yellow, blue, red, as well as different shapes, such as fingerlings. Tomatoes come in a variety of colors, sizes, and flavors. If you miss the taste of a really good flavorful tomato and you don’t have a garden, try heirloom tomatoes. They are usually very colorful, sometimes variegated, not the prettiest shapes, but they have great flavor. Even if you just use red and yellow cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced in half, the color and presentation on the plate of a simple salad are beautiful. It’s amazing what a variety of colors on your plate can do. This adds a definite eye appeal. It’s healthier and tastier. If you have trouble finding colorful fruits and vegetables, try shopping at your local farmers market. You will find new varieties of the freshest, locally grown produce, with both colors and flavors that you never see in the grocery stores. We all should be supporting our local farmer’s markets. The farmers can be a fountain of information about why they chose a certain variety. Could be heartiness, color, taste or nutrition. Ask them. Also, you can ask if they are looking into new varieties.