This Basant Panchami, nourish yourself with healthy portion of yellow foods
It’s Basant Panchami today. This festival is a celebration of the shift in seasons and marks the onset of spring. Spring denotes hope and new beginnings, and that’s probably why the colour of Basant (spring) is yellow, also known as “Basanti”. This sunny hue symbolises prosperity, light, energy and optimism, and — on this day — you are supposed to wear yellow, decorate the house with yellow flowers and eat yellow food, too. The traditional delicacies cooked in homes across the country on Basant Panchami are all yellow and delicious: yellow rice, both sweet and savoury, yellow curries, and of course yellow desserts — boondi ka ladoo, besan ka ladoo, raj bhog, paayesh, meethe chawal, kesaria sheera, et al.
Besides being an instant mood booster and representing happiness, joy and hope, foods of this sunny hue have a lot more going for them. I have already written about how about green leafy vegetables and purple foods are good for you, now know how yellow foods can help you.
All yellow fruits and vegetables are teeming with antioxidants: carotenoids and bioflavonoids, and have an abundance of vitamin C, but some are particularly beneficial.
Besides turmeric (which I have written about extensively earlier too; here’s my pick of top five yellow foods that all of us must eat more of:
Pineapple
It is a de-bloating food; perfect for the days you are feeling bloated as it is loaded with minerals (potassium) and enzymes that help contain bloating and detoxify the body.
Read more here.
Pumpkin
This vegetable is straight out of a health fairy tale. For starters, it extremely low calorie (just 26 per 100gm), is loaded with fibre that keeps your gut happy, delivers a lot of vitamin A, a nutrient which keeps our eyes sharp and also has a role in cancer prevention.
Yellow peppers
Yellow peppers contain more antioxidants, vitamins and minerals than the green ones. They taste sweeter, too. Besides packing a lot of vitamin C, the high amount of folate in peppers helps control homocysteine levels — this cuts the risk of heart disease.
And thanks to vitamin B6 and folate, it’s a good mood food and can help alleviate depression, too.
Corn
Corn is rich in vitamin B, especially thiamin (your brain’s health depends on it), niacin (helps lower bad cholesterol levels), folic acid (an important cog in the production of red blood cells) and pantothenic acid (B5), which is an essential vitamin for carbohydrate, protein, and lipid metabolism in the body.
It is also loaded with lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoids that help keep our eyes healthy. For more benefits, read here.
Sweet potato
Completely overshadowed by potatoes, these tubers that come in the yellow colour too, have a lot going for them nutritionally. They are a natural source of beta carotene, which gets converted into vitamin A in the body, delivers a good amount of vitamin C that helps boost immunity, and two essential nutrients for a healthy heart: potassium and magnesium.
It also packs a lot of B6 — called pyridoxine — which is important for healthy brain function and development, and is involved in the process of making serotonin and norepinephrine, the chemicals that transmit signals in the brain.
Now, as Basant Panchami is celebrated in the honour of Goddess Saraswati — the goddess of knowledge — eating a food that’s great for our brain is an apt way to spend this day, don’t you think?
Happy Basant Panchami everyone!