How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or
resolution enough to mend them.
- Benjamin Franklin
Tomorrow, many of us will make one or more
New Year resolutions. Let today's column
become the foundation for yours.
Society considers that which is white to be pure. Such a belief can be deceptive.
By shining white light through a prism, one is instantly blessed with the hidden beauty and complex nature of our universe. A pure white beam of light reveals its inner essense.
Most people can name the seven visible
colors of the rainbow's spectrum. Violet,
indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. Of course, there are two other colors,
often forgotten, but always present, ultraviolet and infra-red.
Animals and insects feel these colors. Plants sense them, too. While we lack the same receptors and are blind to their existance, our handicap cannot negate their influence.
The ultras and infras of plants are magical substances! They include plant chemicals, or phyto chemicals such as isoflavones and bioflavinoids. Science teaches us that plants protect themselves from attack with their own secretions and chemical messengers. Vegetables repel insects who would eat them, and blossoms attract other insects with a perfume, so that their pollens can be spread and their species self-propagate. Plants protect themselves from too much heat, or cold, or wind, or too much moisture, maintaining their own good health with their specialized hormones.
Plants can cure their own sicknesses and cancers by secreting and bathing themselves with these enchanted essences.
When we eat the plants, we are similarly
protected. Modern science has confirmed the
centuries-old traditions and lore from cultures that refined the sacred techniques of using foods as medicine.
Today's Perfect Rainbow
Eat foods of color. The perfect color can be found right in the middle of our rainbow, the color green. There is a pot of gold and jewels within that rainbow, and these treasures so contained can be cashed in to purchase good health.
In the 1980s, scientists first began to explore how phytochemicals prevent cancers. A great amount of emphasis was placed upon the fruits and vegetables that contain vibrant colors. The best known of these wonder drugs was recognized as beta carotene. That's what gives carrots their bright orange hue.
In the 1990s, scientists at the University
of Minnesota (Steinmetz, et. al.) categorized different groups of fruits and vegetables
demonstrating life giving, disease fighting
qualities. In doing so, they defined some of those magic colors, and the phytochemicals
so contained within those pigments.
Some of those Magical Colors
The violet, indigo and blues of the plant
kingdom includephenols and dithiolthiolnines
contained in eggplant, cruciferous vegetables, grapes, plums, and grains.
Eat onions and shallots, leeks, scallions and garlic for cancer-fighting alliums. Those green leafy vegetables contain flavonoids, and inositol is found in beans. Green fruits and veggies contain phenols, and plant sterols, protease inhibitors and saponins.
Yellow limonines contained in citrus
fruit and squash have also been identified
as cancer fighters, as have the orange carotines in carrots, and my all-time favorite vitamin pill, the cantaloupe. Balancing out the rainbow's spectrum would be the red phenols in peppers, radishes, and tomatoes.
Tens of thousands of unique substances have been identified, and there are still plant hormones and enzymes yet to be discovered.
Remarkably, the one plant containing the greatest amount of these wonderful phytochemicals is the soybean. Soybeans contain coumarins, flavonoids, inositol, isoflavones, lignans, phenols, plant sterols, protease inhibitors, saponins, and Omega 3 and Omega 6 oils.
For many years, it has been said that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away." Such wisdom! Each day of one's life should reflect a lifestyle that includes this maxim: For the best of health eat a rainbow today!