Eat the rainbow

fast-ed.com.au

ONE of the more common and important pieces of nutritional advice we get about planning our diet is that we need to eat a rainbow of colours.

It’s a simple trope that reinforces our requirement to obtain a broad range of nutrients, and those can only be sourced from foods that come in an equally-broad range of tones.

Interestingly, humans (like many other animals) are strongly attracted to red foods, but probably for very different reasons. It’s easy to conclude that redness simply indicates ripeness (after all, that’s the connection we homo sapiens make), but in doing so we forget that birds, reptiles, fish and even other mammals have very different visual systems, some distinctly more complex than our own.

Indeed, humans (along with some primates) may be utterly alone in the way we experience colour. Birds, for example, see ultraviolet colours far beyond the capacity of our eyes, while many reptiles, fish and insects can see infra-red or even heat signatures. Many mammals see only duotones, yet balance this with extremely complex senses of smell.

Red tones in food are about very much more than flavour. It’s mostly about polyphenols, which are the building blocks for essential vitamins and antioxidants, and a chemical called lycopene which helps to prevent the onset and development of diseases such as cancer.

The science is long, and it’s complicated, but the advice is clear and concise. Eat widely, not too much, and make sure there’s a decent spectrum of colours on the plate.

CAMBODIAN BEEF RED CURRY SERVES: 4 Ingredients

2 stalks lemongrass 40g fresh turmeric 4 eschalots, peeled 12 cloves garlic, peeled 25g ginger, peeled

25g galangal, peeled 6 Kaffir lime leaves Zest and juice of 2 limes 12 long red chillies, seeded 1kg chuck beef, diced 2 tbsp peanut oil 500ml beef stock 800ml coconut cream ½ cup fish sauce

12 cardamom pods

4 cinnamon sticks

2 star anise

Black rice, vegetables and Asian herbs, to serve

Method

1. Combine the lemongrass, turmeric, eschalots, garlic, ginger, galangal, lime leaves, zest, juice and chillies in a blender then puree until very smooth. Fry the beef in peanut oil in a heavy-based saucepan over a high heat until browned. Add the curry paste and cook for 5 minutes.

2. Pour in the stock, coconut cream and fish sauce, then add the spices and simmer gently for 3 hours, until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened. Serve with black rice, vegetables and Asian herbs.