Kitchen · 5 min
Add one colour to the plate
No new recipe, no new rules: add one vegetable or fruit to a meal you already eat. A handful of spinach, a tomato, some frozen peas.
Changing how you eat can feel like a big project. This is a small one. You keep the meals you already have, and add one colour to one of them each day: something green, red, orange or purple.
The steps
Four small steps,in your own time.
Look at the meals you ate yesterday and choose the one that had the least colour.
Think of one vegetable or fruit that would fit it: frozen peas in pasta, a sliced tomato on toast, berries on cereal, spinach stirred into soup.
Make sure you have it in. Frozen, canned and dried all count, and they keep.
Add it to that meal today. Tomorrow, choose another meal and another colour.
The reason
Why it helps
Vegetables and fruit bring fibre, vitamins and minerals, and different colours tend to bring different ones. Adding to what you already eat is often easier to keep up than starting a new way of eating. Frozen and canned vegetables are just as useful as fresh, and cost less in waste.
A gentle variation
If chewing is hard, choose soft or cooked colours: mashed sweet potato, stewed apple, blended soup, a smoothie. If cooking is hard, a piece of fruit on the side counts.
WE · TRIBE
Try itwith someone.
Ask a child or the person you care for to choose the colour of the day. Children are often more willing to eat something they chose.
Try it today
Today, add one vegetable or fruit to a meal you already eat, choosing a colour that was missing yesterday.
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