COLORFUL VEGETABLES
Colorful vegetables are good for your heart. But no, M&M’s do not count as vegetables. Orange carrots, red and green bell peppers, red tomatoes, and sweet potatoes, all these are good examples of “colorful vegetables”. It is actually not the specific color that makes it beneficial. Rather, it is the variety of vitamins, minerals, phenols, fiber, and carotenoids that are all good for your heart.
Carotenoids, in particular, are great for heart health because they lower blood pressure. They also improve insulin sensitivity in muscles, liver, and fatty tissues. This improved insulin sensitivity will result in lower blood glucose levels, because the glucose would have been absorbed better into the muscles and organs.
These colorful vegetables are best eaten raw. However, some of them are admittedly too hard and taste terrible when raw. The cooking method that retains the most nutrients in these hard vegetables would be to steam or boil them.
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