They have arrived: The vibrant colors that come with warmer temperatures, from Hawaiian shirts to sun dresses and bright beach umbrellas. When getting decked out in the colors of the season, just remember to apply the same rules to your plate. A colorful meal loaded with produce translates to energy that brings an abundance of antioxidants, fiber and electrolytes, like potassium, to help your body stay hydrated and healthy all season long.
Not sure where to start?
Here are five food combinations to try:
1. Colorful Fruit Kebabs
Thread combinations of your favorite seasonal fruit — cantaloupe, honeydew, grapes, pineapple, watermelon or your favorite berries — together on kebab skewers. Serve as a midday snack or at your next soiree. This colorful treat is a crowd pleaser for both children and adults. During the hot days of summer, fruit is a great way to ensure you are keeping up with your fluid needs, with certain varieties containing more than 90 percent water by weight.
Nutrition Bonus: These kebabs are a fun way to get your daily fruit fix. The antioxidants and flavonoids available in fruit do wonders to protect our cells. Studies even show a diet rich in antioxidants may play a role in skin cancer prevention.
2. Berry Citrus Salads
Dark leafy greens are another water-packed food that will keep your body hydrated, but that’s not all they have to offer: They are rich in minerals like iron, which is critical for the production of red blood cells that deliver oxygen to all the cells in the body. One trick of the “table” to enhance iron absorption is to pair foods rich in iron with others that are rich in vitamin C, like fresh fruit. You can start by adding beans to your next green salad to up the iron content, then top with strawberries and bite-sized pieces of oranges, both rich in vitamin C, to facilitate iron absorption.
Nutrition Bonus: Foods packed with vitamin C increase the absorption of any iron-rich food source, including breakfast cereals, so don’t hold back: Try adding sliced fruit as a refreshing topping to almost any meal or simply serve as dessert.
3. Japanese Cuisine
Have you ever thought about sushi as being a way to support digestive health? It certainly can be. Japanese cuisine is ripe with options when it comes to pre- and probiotics. You can think of prebiotics as the fuel that probiotics thrive on. Examples in this family include leeks, asparagus, edamame and brown rice. Probiotics, the live microbes that help keep our digestive system in balance, can be found in miso and soy sauce, both fermented soy products. Just make sure to look for the unpasteurized versions to reap the most benefit — they’ll likely be in the refrigerated sections of your local health food stores or Asian markets. (Keep in mind both miso and soy sauce are high in sodium, so don’t go overboard.)
Nutrition Bonus: By reaching for fermented foods, your gut bugs — which we are learning play a bigger role in hunger regulation, metabolism and immune system function than we ever realized — will thank you!
4. Brown Rice Kimchi Bowl
Not in the mood for sushi? Make a homemade Korean-inspired bowl with brown rice, tempeh or black beans, leafy greens and top with kimchi. Tempeh and kimchi are both fermented products, and when you combine them with veggies and whole grains, like brown rice, you get another winning prebiotic/probiotic food combination.
Nutrition Bonus: The beans, whether you opt to go for the tempeh or black beans, will naturally lower the glycemic load of your next meal — keeping you full longer and providing you with a fuel source that helps maintain steady energy levels throughout the day.
5. Steamed Greens
Certain nutrients, such as vitamins A and E, fiber, zinc, iron, beta-carotene and calcium found in your deep green family of vegetables (think broccoli, Brussels sprouts and spinach), increase the digestibility and absorption with some cooking, enabling your body to get more out of them than you would if you ate the raw varieties. The same rules apply to carrots, which increase in beta-carotene availability, and to tomatoes, which increase in lycopene availability, when heated. Raw vegetables do offer an extra boost of folate, vitamin C, niacin, riboflavin and potassium, so make sure to eat both cooked and raw versions.
Nutrition Bonus: By continuing to reach for a variety of colorful foods — cooked, raw and even fermented — you’ll extend your natural summer glow all year long. Research shows these plant-based eating patterns promote a healthful weight, skin tone, mood and even lead to a reduced risk of certain diseases, including heart disease and some forms of cancer.
Let the fun begin. Bon appétit!
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Winning Food Combinations for Summer originally appeared on usnews.com
