b'Colors Becoming a More Important Trait in Breeding and EatingAs consumers are encouraged to eat more colorful plates, breeders are rising to the challenge.Alex MartinTHERES A PLETHORAof different colored foods out on the marketplace. Think about all the different colors that you could eat in a day: red apples, orange carrots, yellow bananas, green kiwis, blue blueberries even purple tomatoes. And while there are a lot of different colored options on the market, color is becoming a bigger trend in the fruits and vegetable world.As you start to see more colors in the grocery store, part of this new breeding trend stems from a new food educational stancea lot of students are learning that they need to eat the rainbow to have a healthier diet.Eat the rainbow creates a really posi-tive association with fruits and vegetables, which are the foods that add the most color to our plates, says Lily Sheridan, the farm to school coordinator at Cooking With Kids. Theyre also the foods that are the most lacking in the American diet. Saying eat the rainbow also gives kids an easy set of instructions to try and incorpo-rate all the colors into their diet through-out the day.Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple foods also all bring in different vitamins and minerals into diets to create a more balanced and nutrient-dense way of eating, Sheridan adds.Thats all in just three wordsits really powerful, it packs a punch and its quite an effective way for parents to encourage their kids to eat more fruits andEven beetsa vegetable youre normally thinking of as being red as can behas vegetables, she says. expanded into different colors.PHOTO: SAKATA SEEDS AMERICA.34/ SEEDWORLD.COMSEPTEMBER 2023'