Colors of foods and nutrition

Do have the colors of foods, including vegetables, nutritional importance?

Color of foods and nutrition

Green color

You can find many vitamins in vegetables as in fruits. They often do not have to do with the green color. Thus, Kiwis are green but contain more vitamin C than oranges or tomatoes. And cabbage contains as much when it is green or red.
The green color comes from chlorophyll that is involved in photosynthesis.

Raw foods

These are the seeds such as beans, salads, etc ...
Kiwis for the amount of meat that contain vitamin C.
Raw foods contain enzymes and oxygen, things that disappear at cooking or in prepared meals. They are therefore essential.
Vitamin C tends to disappear when the food is prepared and they must also be consumed quickly.

Cooked foods

Green beans, and more exotic and difficult to cook, dandelion, nettles, etc ...
Cooking destroys much of the C and K vitamins and you should not rely too much on vitamins, but they are devoid of fat and nourish without causing overweight, and contain minerals.
Cooked foods provide more antioxydants.

Red and orange colors

Tomatoes, and the flesh of fruits and vegetables, papaya, pumpkin, etc ...
Contain vitamins and other essential molecules such as lutein.
The orange color of carrots comes from beta-carotene, anti-radical such as vitamin C.
Cooked tomato provide five times more antioxidants than when raw.

Red meat (cooked) provides more iron than white meat. But also more fat. In this case the red color comes from iron.

Purple color

Eggplant, plums.
The color purple is synonymous with collagen. Essential to slow aging.

Yellow color

Egg yolk, corn. The yellow color comes from zeaxanthin which is also used as a natural coloring (E161). This molecule accumulates in the retina and creates a filter against harmful sun rays. It will keep good vision as late as possible.

Conclusion

A good diet should vary foods as much as possible, and the color is a very simple way to achieve diversity in nutrient inputs.