The Food Groups Color Code

Most people know about the four major food groups, and the so-called food pyramid. However, it is actually more effective to group foods according to their color than by their nutrient content. Your diet will not only be healthy, it will be color-coordinated. When mixing foods from different food groups, be sure to stir thoroughly, or your food could come out looking gay. There are eight major food groups: red, mauve, orange, yellow, green, brown, black, and white.

The Red Food Group

• Red meats
• Barbecued potato chips
• Red M&Ms
• Ketchup--The vegetable known as ketchup is world-renowned for its nutritional qualities. It has an extremely high oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) score. Beware, however: some ketchup is made not with eggplants (from which ketchup gets its name; in Cantonese, ketchup means "eggplant juice") but with tomatoes, which contain lycopene. Lycopene is good for your teeth, but excessive consumption of lycopene can make your nose bigger and causes hair to grow on your arms.
• Pimentoes
• Infrared is a form of red; therefore, heating any food increases its red nutritional value.

The Mauve Food Group
The mauve food group was originated by singer Mariah Carey, who eats only purple foods to prevent wrinkles.

• Prunes
• Raisins
• Fondue
• Poi
• Rhubarb

The Orange Food Group
In earlier times, carrots and similar vegetables in the orange food group were sometimes regarded as food items, but their principal use today is as metaphors in news stories about political figures. Journalists are taught how to use food analogies in Journalism 101, as in the sentence, "The President, who has the IQ of a carrot, promised to veto the proposed legislation," or "The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who is no smarter than an asparagus and looks like a kumquat, expressed interest today in raising the capital gains tax."

Carrots have also frequently been used as instruments of foreign policy. They are highly prized by foreign governments, because of their high beta-carotene content.

Foods in the orange food group:

• Texas Pete's Red Sizzling Hot hot sauce
• Cheese puffs
• Orange smoothies

The Yellow Food Group
Yellow foods can cancel out the deadly resveratrol that is sometimes found in foods from the purple food group.

• Beer
• Regular potato chips
• Yellow M&Ms
• Urine has the same color as beer, so it has the same nutritional value. In many cases, the taste is also better.

The Green Food Group
Green foods contain indoles, sulforaphane, isothiocyanate, and allyl sulfides. Do you really want these deadly-sounding chemicals in your system? Green molecules contain conjugated bonds rich in electrons, which makes them highly efficient free radical scavengers. When mixed with red molecules (which contain anti-electrons or positrons), they turn brown, making it nutritionally balanced.

• Meat, when it gets moldy, becomes part of the green food group. As most bachelors know, coffee also changes from the brown to the green food group after a few weeks.
• Absinthe
• Green M&Ms (known as Nature's aphrodisiac).
• Bread (bread is sometimes also in the blue food group).

The Brown Food Group
Brown food is nearly perfect in its nutritional balance. It is also the ideal food for those seeking a return to nature, since it is the same color as products, such as dirt, that are found ubiquitously in nature.

• When red meat is cooked, it changes from the red to the brown food groups. This means its nutritional composition has changed, and it is necessary to add items from the red group to keep it in balance. This may include ketchup, A-1 sauce, etc.
• Coffee--Most people instinctively know that coffee is the perfect food, and accordingly drink six or seven servings a day, as recommended by Exxon Valdez, the Surgeon General of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Caffeinated Beverages.
• Melamine (this essential nutrient was discovered by the Chinese, who put it in all foods designated for export to the U.S. market).
• Bananas
• Dirt--although dirt is also brown, its nutritional value is somewhat limited. It is, however, rich in minerals.
• Root Beer
• Peanut Butter
• Any combination of items from red and green food groups.

The Black Food Group
The black food group is highest in nutritional value, because black contains all the colors of the rainbow mixed together. Black foods are rich in polyphenols called thearubigins. Tar is considered the perfect food in the black food group, and is rich in nutrients such as benzanthrene, toluene, naphthalene, creosote, and a variety of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). However, it should be noted that there is considerable dispute about the health benefits of both PAHs and creosote.

• Roast beef--If your roast beef is not black, that means you're not cooking it long enough to bring out its full nutritional value.
• Some potato chips belong to the black food group. These special chips are usually included in each bag along with regular ones to improve the nutritional statistics on the label, as they are exceptionally nutritious.
• Tar--Although not usually thought of as a food, tar is highly nutritious because it is black. Many squirrels instinctively realize this, and are unfortunately killed while grazing on asphalt roads, which are made of highly nutritious tar. The La Brea tar pits were once teeming with animals who came to lick the natural tar deposits. The Finns pioneered the use of wood tar as a cure-all. However, beginners should avoid drinking raw, unpurified tar, as it could exacerbate pre-existing health conditions.
• Most black foods have many pigments, which are antioxidants. An example is carbon black. Carbon reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. This makes it an antioxidant, although in the process it may form the deadly pollutant CO2, a member of the white food group, which is causing polar bears to drown across the globe.

The White Food Group
White-colored foods are usually highly processed and refined foods with little nutritional value and should generally be avoided.

• Water. Not particularly nutritious, yet many people consume large quantities.
• Salt--often used to add flavoring to nutrient-rich foods such as tar, which in its pure form can be difficult to digest.
• Vitamin supplements--Most vitamins lack nutritive value, because they are white (vitamin C, for example). Beware of vitamins that contain artificial colors to make them appear to be nutritious.
• Nitrites--one of the original four classic food groups (caffeine, nitrites, sugar, and saturated fat). Hot dogs are a rich source of nitrites.
• Ammonia--should generally be avoided.

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Note While writing this, I discovered that there is a real book by James Joseph et al. that recommends using food colors to select nutritious foods. Their theory is serious, and should not be confused with my high-tar and roast beef diet, which is far superior. David Heber of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition has also devised a color code for food. However, it includes only vegetables. Some of the more important nutrients in the American diet, such as tar, coffee, nitrite, and potato chips, are completely omitted by Heber's theory. This page is not intended as criticism of either of these two other theories. Seriously.

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