WHAT COLOR IS YOUR DIET?
David Herber, MD, PhD, and founding director of UCLA's Centre for Human Nutrition, developed the What Color is Your Diet? as a way to help people organize their nutritional planning better. The name implies that you might pick a diet plan based on color, but it’s actually a healthy approach to wellness. Promoting a variety of fruits and vegetables in a diet is healthy, but the problem can be keeping track of how healthy your diet really is. Herber believes the category system he created makes it easier to track, and thereby consume the proper amount and types of vitamins needed in diets.
Foods Emphasized: Egg whites, fruits, vegetables, chicken, fish, whole grains, and olive oil
Foods Discouraged: Whole eggs, butter, sugar, and red meats
Premise and Guidelines: Herber’s diet plan was developed out of his concern for the wellbeing of American dietary health. Government health experts state that people should get a minimum of five servings a day of fresh produce. It’s currently estimated that only a third of the population fulfils that requirement, with the high estimate being almost 80% that do not get enough of these servings. As many as 50% of Americans don't even have a piece of fruit all day, which puts them in the negative for fresh foods- nine servings are considered optimal for health maintenance. The What is Your Color Diet attempts to help the dieter increase this intake of fruits and vegetables, and also eliminate consumption of foods that aren’t healthy and take up too many calories in the average diet. To make things easy for those trying to get closer to the recommended guidelines, Herber devised a color system to identify necessary foods. Vegetables have color coded classification, and has are listed with corresponding health benefits. This diet definitely is not a fad diet, but is a program for healthy weight loss and disease prevention. The diet also emphasizes fat and sugar reduction, while increasing your fruit and vegetable intake. Also essential is the exercise component, which should truly complement any weight regimen.
Herber states that the majority of Americans consume a beige diet consisting of high-fat foods and excessive amounts of sugar. A beige diet would be foods such as bread, cakes, pastries and candy- mostly items that use white flour or are colorless. The idea is that the more color and the more variety in color that you consume, the healthier your diet will be, and you will have greater weight-loss potential. Nearly all fruits and vegetables contain beneficial nutrients such as fiber and natural chemicals known as phytonutrients that have been shown to protect against heart disease, cancer and age-related cognitive decline, cataracts and macular degeneration.
This diet is a great ‘reality’ check for some who believe that they have a healthy diet, but don’t come close to the recommended servings of healthy foods. Surprisingly, there are some who claim to eat a balanced diet, but are not aware that french fries cannot count as a vegetable! By including an array of different fruits and vegetables, or colors, you change your diet for the better. At the heart of this diet, the food planning is not unique, but the organization of your food planning is what makes it worthwhile. Herber's book educates dieters on the basics of nutrition, and promotes healthy lifestyle changes. In addition to losing weight, you will benefit from feeling better and increasing energy levels.