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Daniel Nadeau starts each morning with a cool blueberry smoothie. It’s a bright blue beginning to his day and is just the first step he takes toward bringing a whole rainbow of color to his table.
A Fort Kent native, Dr. Nadeau is the medical director at HealthRight Diabetes, Endocrine and Nutrition Center in Hampton, N.H., and co-author of “The Color Code: A Revolutionary Eating Plan for Optimum Health,” which outlines the scientific and nutritional basis for preventing common health problems by following a diet heavy in brightly colored fruits and vegetables. Nadeau also served as director the Diabetes, Endocrine and Nutrition Center at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, and also was a medical correspondent for WABI-TV in Bangor.
The Bar Harbor-based Wild Blue Berry Association of North America, which has funded research into the nutritional value of wild blueberries, has made Nadeau’s research and “The Color Code” part focus at the 8th annual Wild Blueberry Health Summit, being held today and Friday at the Bar Harbor Inn. Nadeau won’t attend, but “Color Code” co-author James Joseph and “SuperFoods Rx” co-author Steven Pratt, M.D. are featured guest speakers. The conference, which is not open to the public, will be attended by wild blueberry growers, processors and marketers from Maine and beyond.
The basic theme of “The Color Code” is that your mother was right: eating fruits and vegetables is good for you. The Color Code is a bit more specific than mom, of course. It outlines recent research that indicates that in addition to containing multiple vitamins, fruits and vegetables also are chock full of numerous natural chemical compounds, many of which give them their attractive coloring, and are good for you.
The same “phytochemicals” that make a strawberry red and a blueberry blue, along with a whole raft of other naturally vibrant compounds, are potent disease fighters that when made a diet mainstay can be effective in preventing some of the most common human health problems.
“We introduce the concept that these brightly colored fruits and vegetables generate antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects,” Nadeau said in a recent telephone interview. “Those plants sit out in the sun all day bombarded by ultraviolet radiation that would kill us if we had to be out there all the time. The plant protects itself with these phytonutrients and, when we eat it, it conveys to us the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients that protect the plant.”
A color-coded diet rich in bright fruits, berries and vegetables can help stave off ailments ranging from cancer and heart disease to diabetes and osteoporosis and can help to slow the effects of aging. According to The Color Code:
. The natural dye that makes tomatoes red may help ward off prostate cancer.
. The crimson in sour cherries may alleviate arthritis pain.
. The yellow in corn could protect your eyesight
. The golden pigment in curry powder can reduce inflammation.
. The indigo pigments in blueberries may stave off the natural mental decline that occurs as we age.
“Think of it as pigment power,” say authors Nadeau and Joseph, the lead scientist and lab chief at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, and Anne Underwood, a reporter covering health and medicine issues for Newsweek.
“The Color Code” and a few other books like it have boosted interest in a fruit and veggie-laden diet and also have sparked advertising and marketing campaigns around the country.
Welch’s now promotes the antioxidant benefits of its grape juice. The National Watermelon Promotion Board lauds the lycopene found in the red varieties of the fruit. And here in Maine, marketing efforts by the Wild Blue Berry Association of North America touting the “power of blue” and “nature’s number on antioxidant fruit” have helped the industry to break into a new consumer market.
Nadeau developed an interest in nutrition early in life and, as a teenager, ran his own health food store from his home in Fort Kent.
“I’d sit outside reading these left-wing nutritional books and I gained an appreciation for how important diet was,” he said.
That interest in nutrition led to a degree in biology from the University of Maine in Fort Kent and then to a Masters in Nutrition and a medical degree from Tufts.
About six years ago, at another Wild Blueberry Association summit, Nadeau he met Joseph and the idea of The Color Code was born. Joseph had been conducting research that showed that some compounds in wild blueberries helped to improve memory and motor skills in older animals. They talked about the possibility of writing a book. When Joseph’s research attracted media interest and he landed a book proposal, he wanted Nadeau to be involved in the project.
“It all started with blueberries,” Joseph said.
After a brief introduction, “The Color Code” discusses specific fruits and vegetables dividing them by color – reds, yellow-orange, green and blue-purple – and listing the beneficial elements in each item in each category. Although there are sections that feature lists of phytochemicals with names such as quercetin, kaempferol, henzoic acid and geraniol, the book is mainly a plain-English and occasionally humorous explanation of what is good about each fruit and vegetable and why.
A short section discusses other types of diets and the book includes sample menus and 75 recipes along with hints on how to easily adapt to the Color Code eating plan. It encourages mixing and matching of recipe choices in order to maximize the number of fruit and vegetable servings daily.
Nadeau stressed that you don’t have to become a vegetarian to follow the code and the book includes recipes that contain fish and chicken. It also encourages regular exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Even though Nadeau had followed a fairly healthy, “left-wing” diet before becoming involved with the book, what he learned has had an effect on his daily consumption.
“I’ve tried to eat more bright colored food than I did before,” he said. “I wasn’t eating a blueberry shake every morning like I do now. I look for the most brightly colored fruits and vegetables and when I eat out, even if it’s not on the menu, I ask them to serve some spinach with garlic and olive oil.”
He regularly uses the concepts in the book with his patients many of whom come to him because they are heavier than they want to be. Some patients have had a great deal of success simply by incorporating helpings of fruits and vegetables into their diets.
“They’re naturally low in calories,” he said. “A cup of blueberries has just 80 calories, plus they’re packed wit phyoto-nutrients that are very beneficial … and can prevent a variety of diseases. We’ve had some remarkable success stories with people who have moved toward a diet that included as much brightly colored fruits and vegetables as possible along with whole grains and legumes.”
And, he said, they’ve done it without feeling like they’ve starved themselves.
“You can’t just tell people to eat less and less food,” he said. “We try to teach them to make appropriate food choices.”
Although the book takes a positive approach, Nadeau noted that adding five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables to a diet leaves little room for anything else. Something’s got to go, and he says it should be items such as white flour, white sugar and processed foods.
“We try to encourage them to look at food more as something that was grown in a field somewhere,” he said.
Although individual patients vary, Nadeau advocates a “wholesale change” approach to diet change rather than trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables piecemeal. Sometimes, the change does not come easy.
“People have such an attachment to their comfort foods; for them to give up their browinies is not in their sphere of things to do,” he said. “It’s a whole reversal of your culture when you change what you eat.”
Still, by the time his patients come to him, they are generally ready to make a change.
“They’ve heard the messages enough and they’re ready to make the change that can lead to a healthy diet.”
Rich Hewitt can be reached at 667-9394 and bdnnews@downeast.net.
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