Banish the Beige

With so many different diets, theories, conflicting advice and changing viewpoints, it’s tempting to just give up and munch whatever you like.

I focus on one principle and it’s changed the way I eat. More importantly, it’s changed my skin, my health and the way I look at food. That principle is:

There was a time when my diet consisted of toast or muesli for breakfast, a sandwich or wrap for lunch and pasta and more pasta for dinner.

I was at a friend’s party a couple of years ago and looked at the buffet table. Everything on it was unappetising, unhealthy and beige. It was sandwiches, pastries, chips, crisps and cakes.

The visual really struck me and it’s something I’ve been conscious of ever since.

Avoiding beige meals changed the way I nourished my body from that moment on. Banishing the beige means I feel better than I have in a long time, I have more energy and my skin is clearer.

The best part is, you don’t need to drastically change your diet. You just need to think about avoiding beige plates of food. This does not necessarily mean cutting food out of your diet. For me, it’s more about adding lots of colour into my meals. I believe that what you eat matters more than what you don’t eat.

What the science says

Apart from the fact that colourful food looks more appetising and photographs better for your Instagram account, there are some scientific reasons that adding colour to your meals makes you healthier.

Each colour of food contains its own unique set of phytochemicals. Phytochemicals are naturally occurring chemicals found in plants. The plants use these chemicals to protect themselves against pollution, disease and predators. It’s these chemical compounds that give fruits and vegetables their vibrant colour and powerful nutrients.

These nutrients include fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants which are thought to protect us from heart diseases, chronic health conditions and cancer as well as support our immune system and prevent premature aging.

The wider the variety of phytochemicals you eat, the wider the variety of nutrients you’ll be consuming.

A wide variety of nutrients is thought to be an essential component to maintaining a healthy microbiome, that is the bacteria that live on and in us. Scientists now know that when our gut bacteria are healthy, our immune system is strong keeping us healthy. When our gut bacteria is unhealthy, we’re at greater risk of disease.

A healthy gut is therefore thought to be essential for healthy skin. Simply put, the more colourful fruits and vegetables you add to your diet, the healthier you, your gut and your skin will be.

Here’s how to get started:

Look at your current diet

This is your first step. You need to find a way of assessing how beige your diet currently is. This is really important because it gives you a visual of just how boring, unappetising and potentially unhealthy your diet might be.

You can keep a food diary but, as we’re trying to get a visual, the two methods I recommend are:

Take photos on your phone of everything you eat for a week. Store the photos in their own folder. At the end of the week, scroll through the images to get a true picture of how colourful (or not) your current diet is.
Before you put your weekly food shopping away, put everything on your kitchen table or counters. Group your items by colour then take a photo.

Either of these methods will give you a really clear insight into the dominant colour in your diet. If most of your items are beige, you’ve got a few changes to make.

By the way, we’re looking at the natural colour of the foods here. A tray of doughnuts with rainbow icing doesn’t count as colourful food!

Here are some easy ways to make the change:

At the supermarket, consciously fill your trolley with lots of colours.
Make your lunch at home so you are in charge of what goes into your lunch box.
If you do go out for lunch, head to the salad bar rather than the sandwich counter.
At home, eat the rainbow. Make it your mission to brighten up each of your meals by adding plenty of fruits and vegetables to your dishes.
In a restaurant, pick the dish you know will be colourful or order a side salad to accompany your meal.
Throw a handful of greens such as spinach or kale into pretty much any dish – soups, smoothies, chilli, pasta, rice, eggs, wraps, salads.
Add fruits or vegetables to every meal.

Brighten up your meals

You can still have your favourites. If you love macaroni cheese, eat macaroni cheese but mix peas through it and top it with sliced tomatoes. If the thought of that doesn’t do it for you, fill half of your plate with macaroni cheese and the other half with a colourful salad.

I’ve prepared a list of the typical ways I brighten up my meals to give you some ideas. You can download it here.

Get your kids involved

Not only is banishing the beige great for your health, it’s great for your kids too. Kids love the stimulation they get from bright colours. Challenge them to eat as many different colours of food as they can in a day and as many foods as they can find that are their favourite colour.

My daughter’s favourite colour is yellow. Eating yellow means she’ll tuck into bananas, pineapple, cheese, corn on the cob, baby corn, melon, mango, peppers and eggs. Actually, she won’t eat eggs but you see where I’m going with this.

Mindful Eating

Banish the beige is about adding lots of colours into every meal. It’s not about cutting things out of your diet unnecessarily. However, if you do suspect that something in your diet is causing you problems, try mindful eating. Mindful eating is simply paying attention to how particular foods make you feel once you’ve eaten them.

The goal is to find out which foods make you feel healthy and energised and which foods your body complains about. You then eat more of the first list of foods and less of the second.

It’s so important to recognise that cutting a food out of your diet will not, on its own, heal your skin. You must also add lots of goodness into your diet to get true and lasting healing so keep on banishing the beige!