Sunday, November 22, 2015

Eating well by color - Orange color of Pumpkin

As we are born out of Nature and we are part of Nature, I believe that Natural is the way of living. At least we can try.

The beauty of Nature lies in its various colors. Can we name all the colors found in nature??
Well I can't go too far...

I have read somewhere that if we eat food i.e. fruits and vegetables as per colors, we can get all the nutrients necessary for the body. Nature has found a clever way to highlight the nutrients in foods. Different nutrients actually impart different colors to the foods they’re in. There are Blue, Purple, Red, Orange, Yellow and Green colored fruits and vegetables with various nutrients.

Today I would like to talk about orange color. Mango, Oranges, Papaya etc, are of orange color when they are ripe. They can be eaten in their natural form. Sweet Potatoes taste best boiled or baked. Sweet Potato chips can be grilled too. Halwa and dry vegetable is also cooked with Sweet Potato during fast.

Pumpkin is the next vegetable rich in Alpha and Beta Carotene. The Phytochemicals found in them also operate as antioxidants, sweeping up disease-promoting free radicals, thus acting as anti aging agents. It is very popular in West but  in Indian Cooking pumpkin is eaten as dry vegetable or Halwa (a sweet) in Rasam etc. and sometimes we prepare soup also. I make paratha too, which my MIL likes a lot. Let us discuss the recipes of the same