The days of funny-looking health food are long gone. Healing foods are beautiful foods. The healthiest fruits and vegetables display a dazzling array of color because many nutrients are also pigments. Beta carotene, the flavonoids and chlorophyll tint foods with pinks, oranges, fire-engine red, purple, and emerald. The wonderful vitality and freshness of healing foods is also a delight to the eye.
When you cook with healthy ingredients, making the most of their good looks is even good for your health. As soon as you see a food that looks appetizing, the digestive processes begin, even before the food goes into your mouth! Good digestion helps you absorb food so you can benefit from the vitamins and minerals it contains.
When you cook, you have the chance to be an artist. Use colorful foods like an artist uses colorful paint and create a picture.
- Say that you have a dessert sauce made of raspberry puree that you plan to pour over some fruit and a little slice of cake. Instead, spoon the sauce onto a plate, covering all or just a part. Next place the fruit and the cake slice on top of the sauce to make the most of its color and to give your dessert a pretty backdrop.
- Enjoy extra-virgin olive oil on your bread instead of using butter. Display its lovely translucent greens by serving the oil in a small glass bowl.
- To show off a food's color, serve it on a plate of contrasting color: red on green, green on yellow, pale green on purple, and yellow on turquoise. It may be the same old recipe, but they'll think you cooked something special.
- If you overcook your veggies, you won't have much color to show off. To keep vegetables such as spinach from turning muddy green, cook them without a lid and don't overcook. Adding baking soda also is a way to retain the green, but doing this destroys vitamins, especially vitamin B1 and vitamin C.
- Create meals that provide foods of various colors, and you'll be eating a greater variety of nutrients. Include something orange and something green, and you'll be sure to have some beta-carotene and magnesium. Beta carotene is an orange pigment, and magnesium is part of green chlorophyll.
Using attractive serving plates adds even more to a food's appeal, as does a little garnish.
- Select dinner plates with a border pattern — frames for your picture-perfect foods.
- Garnish with a sprig of fresh, healing dill, tarragon, rosemary, or sage. Clip three stems of chive and arrange them in a fan.
- Use a sprinkling of nuts and seeds as a garnish for all sorts of dishes and benefit from these nutritious foods every day.
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