Taste the rainbow

Earlier this evening, I had the pleasure of seeing a wonderful acoustic set by the Head and the Heart. If you haven't heard of this band yet, I pity you. They're so wonderful. Their voices harmonize so perfectly together and you can tell they're genuinely enjoying themselves up on stage. Also, I had a chance to talk to them very quickly afterward and they are incredibly nice.

You can check out a song from them here:



As I was driving home, I thought back to a post I made a few days back with some fitness and health advice for busy people. I realized that I forgot to include a tidbit of nutrition advice that I always try to follow but I guess it's just as well (but I miss your face like hell. [Watch the video if you don't get this]) because it's really great advice for everyone, not just busy people... and it gives me an excuse to share a recipe!

In my other blog, I said that it's a good idea to try to eat a lot of foods that are brightly colored (but not artificially colored!) and this kind of builds on that. I like to call it the "Rainbow Rule" and no, it's not just for gays. In case you didn't imply this from the name, you basically make sure that you get at least one food that's every color of the rainbow somewhere in each of your meals throughout the day. What's the reasoning behind this? It makes sure they you get a variety of nutrients as foods with different colors generally will have different nutritional content. It also encourages you to get foods from a variety of different food groups.

Of course, some of the colors (read: blue and purple) can be difficult to find. Off hand, I think of blueberries for blue and... nothing else. Purple makes me think of eggplant, plums, and grapes. For that reason, I usually combine these two colors into one and if I can get both, great!

That brings me to the recipe I mentioned earlier! A couple friends and I were making dinner the other night and, me being me, I insisted upon it being mostly healthy. My friends took care of making garlic bread, a fruit salad (for dessert... As Marge Simpson once said, "Fruit is nature's candy!"), and an improvised baked pasta while I was in charge of a salad. Obviously, I wanted to pack as many nutrients as I could into the salad. Everyone seemed to enjoy the salad so the next week when I was looking to make a quick, healthy meal for myself, I decided to bust out the salad again, but this time with a slight modification to add yet another color that wasn't included in the original salad. I ended up enjoying it even more the original so I thought I'd share the recipe with you all.

And by share the recipe, I mean I'm going to give it a name and tell you what's in it. I'm going to give you any specifics or measurements or anything because it's a fucking salad. So let's call it Rainbow Salad because it's very colorful. Can everyone agree on that? Good.

So start with a big ass bowl and fill it with some spinach. Notice how I said spinach and not lettuce. Spinach=darker green=more nutrients than lettuce. You'll want about as much spinach as you think will feed however many people you're serving (duuuuuh!) unless you want to have left overs for later (double duuuuuuh!) Use your best estimation skillz.

So yeah, we're off to a great start and we already have green! But we're not going to stop the green there. Oooooh, no. Next up is cucumbers! I usually cut some into circles and then cut them into four pieces after that. I also keep some in thin circles to put on top of the salad at the end.

Next, git yerself sum peppars! Or, in English, get yourself some peppers! More specifically, you'll want red, orange, and yellow peppers. After washing them, cut them into small squares and then toss them into your bowl. Bam! Four colors down. God, isn't this amazing?! I feel like Emeril.

Now comes the really exciting part... AS IF SPINACH ISN'T EXCITING ENOUGH. Are you ready for it?!

BLUEBERRIES.

Holy. Fuck.

Mind blowing, right? Right. So wash yourself some of those deeeeelicious blueberries (I recommend using organic for less exposure to pesticides... Blueberries are on the EWG's Dirty Dozen!). There's blue! Woo! You've got all your colors, more or less! Now you're ready to toss the salad. Soooo... toss the salad. And I mean that in a non-sexual way, you pervert.

But we're not done yet! For an added dash of red, let's add some strawberries, why don't we? I also recommend getting these organic for the same reason. I've also noticed that the organic strawberries at my local grocery store tend to be straight up better quality than the conventional ones. Slice the strawberries into the thin slices and spread them nicely across the top along with any cucumber slices you saved. Awwww, now it looks awesome, too!

If you feel the need for dressing, which I highly recommend against because it's basically empty calories, go with olive oil as a healthy alternative and make sure you only put on a light amount. Trust me, this salad is so flavorful you won't even need dressing!

So there you go. My half assed approach to sharing a recipe. Try it, let me know what you think. Also, if you have any blue or purple foods you can think of, let me know!