[imagesource: Mediterranean / iStock]

2021 is the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables – so cheers to that.

In acknowledgement of this special year, designated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), we are here to recognise the health benefits of fruit and vegetables.

As you may well know, there are myriad health benefits with fruit and veg consumption – a rainbow’s worth, if you will.

Per Healthy Eating, there are three main types of pigment in the fruit and veg rainbow: carotenoids, which give orange and yellow vegetables their colours, flavonoids, which provide blue, red and cream colours, and chlorophyll, which makes greens green.

What you may not know is that the colours of each fruit or veg can actually tell us a great deal about which nutrients they contain.

Via European Sting, the FAO’s graph does a good job of illustrating this:

Image: FAO

I feel like bok choy isn’t spoken about enough in this country.

There’s definitely room for some rugby-veggie crossover puns.

Ensuring that you get your daily rainbow-coloured health kick is easier said than done, and sometimes we need a little help.

Juices and smoothies are a great way to tick those boxes, and Sir Fruit is a great place to start your journey.

When you think of vitamin C, orange is the colour that comes to mind, right?

But actually, the red strawberry contains more vitamin C than oranges, which is what makes the Sir Fruit Strawberry / Beetroot smoothie such a winner.

Orange is also associated with improving your immune function and lowering your risk of heart disease, vision problems, and cancer.

To boost your iron levels, you have to go green, which means piling in the spinach, peas, and beans.

If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, there’s always Sir Fruit’s Green Machine Juice containing spinach and other green goodness.

Purple and blue fruit and veg, like blueberries, contains a powerful antioxidant called anthocyanin, which you’ll find in Sir Fruit’s Cold Pressed juice containing both beetroot and raspberries.

Colour aside, the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables is also intended to support a more sustainable food system, which includes the minimisation of food waste.

Sir Fruit’s wet food waste is supplied to pig farmers, and peels from the processing of citrus are supplied to cattle farmers for animal feed, so you’re sorted on that front, too.

All of their juices, smoothies, Cold Pressed juices, health shots, and more can be found via their online store.

However you do it, make sure you get the goods you need to keep your body in fighting form.

[sources:sfgate&europeansting]