Why is Eating Colourful Food Good for You?

Most of us are faced with the same choice numerous times a day: what to eat. Along with price, accessibility and preference, we’ll often use a food’s healthfulness to help us make a decision. 【小题1】

It’s widely accepted by researchers that we need a varied diet. 【小题2】 The proof may be in the Mediterranean diet, which contains a lot of fruit, vegetables and healthy fats such as extra virgin olive oil, and is frequently rated the healthiest diet by scientists.

Eating lots of colours may lower your risk of missing out on all vital nutrients. “If we re missing a colour of the rainbow, we may be missing a function of that food,” says Minich. This is because plant foods contain thousands of natural compounds, which have anti-inflammatory (抗炎的) benefits.

【小题3】 Blue and purple foods, including blueberries, have a high content of the plant anthocyanin (花青素), which has been linked to lowering the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Flavones (黄酮), which give foods a yellow colour, may reduce the risk of heart disease.

Research follow at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, says eating a colourful diet can also help people avoid possible side effects of eating too much of one food. “【小题4】 For example, research has found that orange juice is associated with a lower risk of cognitive decline, but too much intake is associated with type 2 diabetes,” she says. Although, this is because of its sugar content, not flavones.

Eating a rainbow diet may also be complex. 【小题5】 We could tie ourselves in knots. We also need to eat from other food groups to get all the nutrients we need, such as protein.

It’s a rink which has become synonymous with a healthy life style-but is green tea the magical potion many health sites would have us believe? Green tea has been popular in China for centuries and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a number of health issues-including depression.

Its virtues have also beenextolledby celebrities and so-called health experts for a number of reasons. These include its ability to help weight-loss as well as containing antioxidants which are believed to help combat different types of cancer. heart disease and Alzheimer's. Given these claims, it’s easy to see green tea as sort of magical elixir.

1.Green tea and weight loss

Green tea contains B vitamins, folate (naturally occurring folic acid), manganese, potassium, magnesium, caffeine and other antioxidants, such as catechins. It’s catechins along with green tea’s naturally occurring caffeine which are thought to help the body burn more calories. Weight-loss products containing green tea have a higher concentration of catechins and caffeine than the typical green tea beverage. However, there's some bad news. A review from 2012 of 18 studies involving 1,945 people found no significant effect of weight loss from drinking green tea.

2. Green tea and cholesterol

Thanks again to the catechins, in a reputable review from 2013 of 11 studies involving 821 people, it was found daily consumption of green and black tea (as a drink or a capsule) could help lower cholesterol and blood pressure.

It's important to note, however, that the authors of the study pointed out the trials were short-term, and cautioned longer-term trials would be needed to substantiate their findings. These were back up by an earlier review in 2011, which found drinking green tea enriched with catechins led to a small-reduction in cholesterol, a main cause of heart disease and stroke.

Though no one could say for certain how much green tea a person would need to drink to reap the benefits.

3. Green tea and cancer

On this the NHS is clear. There is no evidence drinking green tea protects against different types of cancer.

Many facts suggest that children are overweight and the situation is getting worse, according to the doctors. I feel there are a number of reasons for this.

Some people blame the fact that we are surrounded by shops selling unhealthy, fatty foods, such as fried chicken and ice cream, at low prices. This has turned out a whole generation of grown-ups who seldom cook a meal for themselves. If there were fewer of these restaurants, then probably children would buy less take-away food.

There is another argument that blames parents for allowing their children to become overweight. I agree with this, because good eating habits begin early in life, long before children start to visit fast food shops. If children are given fried chicken and chocolate rather than healthy food, or are always allowed to choose what they eat, they will go for sweet and salty foods every time, and this will carry on throughout their lives.

There is a third reason for this situation. Children these days take very little exercise. They do not walk to school. When they get home, they sit in front of the television or their computers and play computer games. Not only is this an unhealthy pastime (消遣), it also gives them time to eat more unhealthy food. What they need is to go outside and play active games or sports.

The above are the main reasons for this problem, and therefore we have to encourage young people to be more active, as well as steering them away from fast food shops and bad eating habits.