What Color Is Your Diet?: The 7 Colors of Health

"Most Americans eat far too few foods with any color in them," says David Heber, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. Instead, we tend to eat a high-fat, highly processed "beige diet" full of snack foods and refined grains (bread, cake, pastries) that don't fit the requirements of our genes. The average intake of fruits and vegetables is only 3 servings a day, when it should be 7 to 11 servings a day.

According to Heber, the varied colors in fruits and vegetables indicate "specific beneficial substances that help to prevent the common diseases that affect many of us as we get older." Damage to DNA leads to changes in our genes as we age that can result in diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's disease. Substances found in plant foods protect our DNA.

Heber has coded plant foods into seven colors, all of which have different health-protecting qualities: red, red-purple, orange, orange-yellow, yellow-green, green, and white-green. "Colorize your diet" to protect your DNA by eating at least one serving (one-half cup cooked or one cup raw) of a fruit or vegetable from each color each day. Huber also suggests that at least half your protein intake be soy. He includes diet plans for men (1,800 to 2,000 calories) and women (1,200 to 1,400 calories) and 19 recipes to get you started. Though the emphasis is on plant-based foods, most of his recipes are not vegetarian. --Joan Price