Your dinner plate should be an artist’s palette, a rainbow of diverse hues. If your dish is rich in full of drab browns and grays, it’s time to color your culinary world with deep reds, bright yellows and oranges, greens and more.

There’s a growing body of research that proves eating lots of colorful vegetables and foods can contribute to a lower risk of all types of cancer. By now, we’ve all heard about the importance of five-a-day (five servings of fruits and veggies). It’s a rule to live – and eat – by.

Health care professionals recommend that you fill two-thirds of your plate with color -- veggies, fish, fruit, or legumes, doesn’t matter. The more deep green or reds or orange/yellows, the better.

Why the colors?   

It has been noted that certain nutrients, known as phytochemicals and antioxidants, are found in foods bright in color. This makes them easy to spot in the fresh vegetable and fruit sections of your grocery store. “Phytochemical” simply means chemicals from plants.

What is special about these chemicals is that they seem to protect living cells from potentially harmful compounds in the environment and food. Phytochemicals are also thought to prevent cell damage and mutations, which could lead to cancer.   

Antioxidants can be natural or man-made chemicals that prevent or slow cell growth. “Antioxidant” describes a behavior rather than a substance. There are cells called “free radicals” which damage other cells by stealing an essential component. These free radicals then become stable but remain damaged, while that stealing action creates another free radical. And on and on. After a time, there are clumps of free radicals, which can then possibly cause a variety of illnesses and cancers.


Five Veggies that Could Prevent Cancer

1. There’s an extensive group of green, leafy vegetables that are called “cruciferous” vegetables. They have large amounts of chemicals -- nutrients, vitamins and minerals -- that are known to break down into biologically active compounds, which have been studied as anti-cancer medications. This class includes: arugula; horseradish; bok choy; kale; broccoli; radishes; Brussel sprouts; rutabaga; cabbage; turnip; cauliflower, watercress, collard greens or wasabi. Of course, if you eat sushi, you could leave the wasabi for a garnish rather than a vegetable serving. Your taste buds and sinuses would probably appreciate it.

2. Vibrantly red tomatoes are rich in lycopene, a red phytochemical and powerful antioxidant. In lab experiments, lycopene seemed to stop breast cancer and endometrial cancer cells from advancing in size and mass.   

There has been speculation that perhaps lycopene boosts the immune system or interferes with tumor cell growth. To get the most benefit from tomatoes, use cooked or processed fruit as it makes the lycopene more readily available to the body. Watermelons, pink grapefruits and red bell peppers can also help guard your DNA from damage, lowering your cancer risk.

3. Sulfur, that pungent smell from garlic cloves, may help prevent cancer by keeping toxic substances from being developed by the body, repairing DNA and killing dangerous cells. It is thought to lower the risk of colon and esophageal cancer along with battling a bacteria that may be responsible for some stomach ulcers. For best results, when cooking, peel 15 or 20 minutes before you use garlic to allow the release of enzymes and sulfur compounds that have protective effects.

4. Broccoli is another cruciferous vegetable, but it has such a good quality of anti-cancer qualities that it warrants its own section. It produces the phytochemical glucosinolate, which produces protective enzymes. These enzymes are released when you rupture the cell wall of the raw veggie. Another interesting event that happens is that your intestines release anti-cancer enzymes when broccoli passes through, detoxifying harmful environmental substances or attacking toxic bacteria.
   

5. Popeye was right! Eat your spinach and you may be staving off, not Bluto, but blindness and cancer. This dark green leafy vegetable is rich in antioxidants, especially lutein, which is good for eye health. Other free-radical fighters, zeaxanthin and carotenoids, remove bad blood components and are thought to protect against esophageal, ovarian, endometrial, lung, mouth, larynx and colorectal cancers.  Other leafy veggies may have tumor growth inhibitors for breast, skin and stomach cancers.

A couple of vegetables worth mentioning are cooked carrots and sweet potatoes. Cooked carrots supply more of that powerful antioxidant, beta-carotene, than when raw. Many believe beta-carotene protects cell membranes from toxin damage and slows the growth of cancer cells. Also thought to lower the risk of lung, colon, and stomach cancer. One study found that by eating a substantial quantity of beta-carotene rich vegetables, the risk for cancer was cut in half when combined with a diet including folate, vitamin C and fiber.

How About Them Berries!

You can’t discuss antioxidants without addressing berries. You just can’t. Strawberries and black raspberries are high in antioxidants and in the lab.

They had the greatest impact on cancer cells. Strawberries are also high in vitamin C and ellagic acid, which in lab tests, seemed to rev up production of an enzyme that slowed tumor growth and destroyed cancer-causing substances.

Flavonoids have been discovered in berries, and these chemicals may suppress the enzyme that damages DNA and is linked to lung cancer. Blueberries have particularly good antioxidants. In fact, blueberries are thought to be one of the most fruitful sources of anthocyanins, also known as an effective anti-inflammatory.

So what we do know is that your mama was right. Eat your vegetables everyday and keep the cancer -- and other illnesses -- away. Five a day – that’s the way. And be sure to keep it colorful.