Tasteful colors provide a palette for eating right

First, let me share a little history. My Norwegian heritage involves an evening meal (we Norwegians usually refer to it as "supper") with a plate of food that’s completely without color. In our household it was often creamed potatoes, white fish of some kind (canned fish balls are quite vivid in my recall), cauliflower and applesauce.

White foods are not necessarily bad for you. Foods like turnips and jicama contain health-promoting phytochemicals, but they can be rather — well, let’s just say it — boring, and they definitely cannot stand alone. They need colorful companions.

The plate I want to eat from has a small amount of white and a whole lot of beckoning color. Ideally, the foods on it are red, yellow, orange, green, blue and even purple. "Eat the rainbow," says my colleague Janice Gregg, a nutrition-focused home economist.

All the experts say we should have five to nine vegetables and fruits a day (three to five servings of vegetables, two to four of fruit). If we do that on a regular basis the health benefits are numerous and include weight management, anti-aging protections (based on solid research) and a reduction in the risk of cancer and heart disease.

Let’s take green foods. They are definitely among the most nutritious but greens need an image boost, at least that’s the theory put forward by the American Institute for Cancer Research.

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We often see greens as garnish on our plate instead of joining other colorful vegetables and covering half of our plate — that’s right, our vegetables should take up half of our dinner plates.

For me, green vegetables include spinach (my all-time favorite), Brussels sprouts (a great snack food, by the way) and sugar snap peas.

Blue and purple vegetables are the real attention-getters. They do everything from boosting memory function to promoting urinary tract health. Consider steaming purple asparagus or purple cabbage or, perhaps, roasting eggplant.

But it’s red vegetables that can be the truly bright spot on your plate. Options include red peppers and red onions. These foods have a science-based reputation for reducing the risks of breast, lung, endometrial and prostate cancers.

Cheery yellow and orange vegetables have incredible antioxidant properties and contain loads of Vitamin C. Carrots don’t stand alone in this category. If you have not done so lately, try roasting butternut squash or grilling sweet potato slices (rich in fiber and complex carbohydrates).

Recently, I was provided a little assistance with my plan to create a more colorful meal plate. It’s a cookbook titled "Meals That Heal" (Rodale Press, $29.95), written by Anne Egan and Regina Ragone, women experienced in both the culinary arts and nutrition. The recipes are delicious, colorful and gloriously healing.

The authors believe what Hippocrates, the father of medicine, believed: "Let food be thy medicine."

Sharon Johnson is an assistant professor in family and community development at OSU Extension and a member of the Senior Advisory Council. Reach her at s.johnson@oregonstate.edu