Body Mind Soul and Live Healthy Longer
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Body Mind Soul and Live Healthy Longer
Eating the Rainbow Can Heal Your Life!
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In this vibrant and enlightening episode, Dr. James Polakof welcomes Dr. Deanna Minich, an internationally renowned scientist, author, and teacher. As the President of the American College of Nutrition and the visionary behind The Rainbow Diet, Dr. Minich shares her groundbreaking approach to nutrition, blending science with creativity for total mind-body healing.
Discover how eating a variety of colorful foods can reduce inflammation, boost energy, and enhance longevity. Dr. Minich explains the power of phytonutrients, the emotional connection to food, and how a 21-day journey of creativity can transform your health and well-being.
Join us for a fascinating conversation that will inspire you to nourish your body, mind, and soul—one vibrant bite at a time!
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Introduction to Color and Healing
Speaker 1Live Healthy Longer is sponsored by LHL Institute, where aging presents a new stage of opportunity and the longer we live, the more beautiful life becomes. Our host is Dr Jim Polakoff, certified nutritionist, author and a health specialist dedicated to enriching the lives of others. Now here is Dr Jim Polikoff.
Speaker 2This is Dr Jim Polikoff and once again, I want to express my gratitude to the thousands of listeners who continue to follow my podcast, Very much appreciated. This episode of Live Healthy Longer focuses upon how color can heal your life. Now, color itself actually has the power to shift our emotions and release stress. Color can be a great tool for understanding your inner world, awaken your intuition and challenge you. However, from my perspective as a certified nutritionist, you. However, from my perspective as a certified nutritionist, I know foods with certain colors can heal and energize your body.
Speaker 2Yes, now, most of you are aware that certain fruits and veggies have properties that provide your body with nutritional benefits, but did you know that a specific color can actually target the healing of a specific disease or ailment? Having said this, there's no one better qualified to explain how color can heal your life than Dr Deanna Minnick. Yes, dr Minnick is an internationally known scientist, author and teacher. She's also president of the American College of Nutrition, an originator of the Rainbow Diet 21 Days of Creativity to Change your Life. Welcome to Living Healthy Longer, dr Minnick.
Speaker 3Why, thank you? Thank you for having me, Dr Jim.
Speaker 2All right, no problem. In any case, I understand as a teenager and into early adulthood I understand as a teenager and into early adulthood you encountered a myriad of personal health issues, so this led you to wanting to learn more about your body. Tell us about that period of your life.
Speaker 3Oh, it was tumultuous, you know, I guess you know what teenager doesn't have tumultuous times, but for me, I grew up in a home with, I would say, very strict, very restrictive parents and perhaps a little bit more than normal. My father was a Chicago police officer and my mother was really into health and nutrition and she was definitely ahead of her time. This is the 1970s, when it really wasn't the trend to be into what you're eating, and so you know, there was a lot of restriction around food and eating and I couldn't have a lot of things. I'd go to Girl Scout campfires and I'd have to bring my own food and I'd have these strange lunches that I'd have to bring to school.
Speaker 2You're sort of an unusual individual with your friends.
Speaker 3I was very unusual, although now I look back thinking that, wow, my mom did something that was really revolutionary and I really I thank her for it now and I'm really glad that she did those things. But at the time I was well, I am a bit of a sensitive emotional person and I think that it affected me emotionally and, as you know, me emotionally and as you know psychoneuroendocrine immunology right and because this was so emotionally tumultuous, what ended up happening, I think, is I had a lot of health conditions. I had a lot of gut issues, skin issues, reproductive I think that those were my areas where I experienced the most. So I had endometriosis from a very young age, so that's an inflammatory condition of the uterus, kind of continuing on from, kind of a family history pattern in that respect.
Speaker 3But I began to have this pattern of disordered eating. You know, I would binge. I like sweets, I couldn't have things like cookies and cakes, and so I would binge on those things. I would take my allowance, I would take my newspaper delivery money and I would just use that money to buy candy.
Speaker 2So you sneak out of the house and buy some candy.
Speaker 3Yeah, my mom did not know. My mom did not know, and she found out later, though my sister was in on it with me. I was the the oldest, and my younger sister was in on it with me, but yeah, it was. I think that that really laid the groundwork for the next phase of my life. But so what I would do is I would start to get these symptoms. I had gut issues, I had anxiety. I look back now at all the things I had and how I could have remediated those things very easily with food and lifestyle. But you know, when you're in your own I would say like you're in your own bubble you don't really see those things.
Speaker 2Particularly when you're younger, that has a lot to do with it. Obviously we haven't hit the edge of maturity yet, but it's interesting that while you were earning your doctorate degree and your master's degree as well, but your doctorate afterwards you realized there's more to standard medical treatments than just curing our ills. So you went abroad to study Chinese energy medicine and you felt drawn to begin painting vivid colors and abstract shapes. And then you begin seeing people, if I'm correct, through warming colors.
Speaker 3Well, through any colors. Yeah, Color became my medicine. So yeah, I was trained as a classical academic scientist, right? So I went and I studied. My undergraduate degree was in biology. I went on for a master's degree to study of all things, human nutrition and metabolism.
Speaker 3And then I went on for my PhD in medical science and the focus of my dissertation was essential fatty acids. And all the while I was still having issues right. It wasn't like I completely healed myself. I felt like all of this study was a quest for me to better understand who I was whether it was body, mind, emotions you know all of those things and I often hear from other people in the healing arts that one of the things that started them on their health journey was having a personal crisis. So yes, in some of my days when I wasn't feeling as good, what I turned to was something bright and vivid, which was color.
Speaker 2Now, did that lead you to painting? Is that how you really became absorbed with colors?
Speaker 3Well, no, not directly.
Speaker 3So I remember I was having it was kind of a rough weekend and I was doing lots of research in the lab this was during my PhD and I was just working too hard, working too long, working too hard.
Speaker 3And I went up to the art store in the town that I was living in and I just decided to buy some paints. I decided to buy paper and, I don't know, it was an intuitive process. It wasn't like color just arrived, it was like I decided to do something else, to get out of my own way, so to speak. So I started painting and I would put these bright, vivid colors on large pieces of paper and in the home that I was living in, I almost felt like colors were feeding me. In a way. It was like what I was doing was looking for other means, and, as a scientist, we're always looking at patterns, we're looking for the truth, and I began to explore other things like yoga and energy healing, intuitives, people to help me to figure this out, and so the art and painting came by way of that whole process.
Speaker 2Interesting, all right. So when you picked it up, I mean the thing that I noticed that I read about you at least correct me if I'm wrong, but you actually begin seeing people through warming colors. How did that work?
Speaker 3Well, I had a sense of yeah, you know, it's interesting because here I was kind of in my darkest days of not feeling particularly motivated, feeling depressed, feeling anxious. And as I began this whole process of working with color and painting, I began to connect to people in terms of energy, meaning that I'd get impressions of people as colors. And the way that that translated into my life was, if I felt particularly inspired by somebody, I would paint them. I would paint them as a color, and I've painted for very few people, but the people that I've painted for, they were very significant in my life.
Speaker 3And so one example is one of my mentors. I painted him as an aquamarine color. I kept seeing him as an aquamarine. I had another friend earlier in life and she really helped me to understand the natural healing space a little bit more, and I painted her as pinks and golds and melon colors, and I you know it's nothing specific, I can't say that and sometimes people will say well, what color do you see me, as you know, and I kind of have to tune in and I think that people have connections to colors that might be more constitutional and I think that certain colors might come into our lives at various times.
Dr. Minnick's Personal Health Journey
Speaker 2Well, you know it's interesting because you mentioned in what you write you mentioned the combination of mind, body and spirit, and what you're talking about really appears, to me at least, to be spiritual. You're able to pick up on views of people I mean often when they talk about afterlife and what we see each other as. In afterlife, we see ourselves as colors, so you're probably well advanced into another phase of life that most people don't even understand or see.
Speaker 3Well, I do have a lot of interest in spirituality and really looking at the whole spectrum of our beingness, right?
Speaker 3One of the ways that color has come into my daily work as a scientist is through the colors of food. And the way that I look at colors is that nature has a particular rhyme and reason for these colors and if we can tune into those colors, we tap into the functional signature of those foods. So when I think of red, when I look at the literature on red and the feeling of red, red is urgent, emergent, it is passionate. And when I look at the science, it's a lot about protection, it's a lot about antioxidant defense, it's about reducing inflammation or the redness. So the red foods help to reduce the redness within the body, so to speak, not exclusively, but I can see patterns. Orange is a very playful color, it's bright, it's warming, it's inviting. And when I look at orange in nature, it corresponds to carotenoid compounds. Carotenoids are in plants, they are what goes into our body and also help to protect us, but they seem to have a little bit more of a reproductive health function.
Speaker 2Antioxidants as well.
Speaker 3Exactly, but a different kind of antioxidants than the red kind. So the orange kind seem to be more fat soluble.
Speaker 3So they go into different parts of the body right and there are about 700 different carotenoids and there are different colors. Some of them are red, some of them are orange, some are yellow. So I see that there's a connect, there's a color code to food. In my perspective, with my background in nutrition, my background in food, I began to see that with colors and even how we use colors in our environment to prime our psyche, what kind of day do we want? Do we want like today? I have kind of a green ground color on. I want an earthy, I want a grounded color today. I want something that feels rooted in earth, because I know I have a lot of things to do this week.
Speaker 2So you woke up and that's what you felt like something greenish, something in a dark green color of some kind.
Speaker 3Correct. I feel out colors. Colors help me to gauge my feelings. You know, most of us are directed by our emotions. They prime our behavior, our decisions, and one of the ways that I can speak the language of my emotions is through color. How do I feel today? I even have my wardrobe divided by colors. It's all in the rainbow.
Speaker 3I have my red blouses, I have my orange, I have my white. I don't have much in the way of yellow. I don't feel like I'm drawn to wearing yellow, but I like to surround myself in yellow. I have a lot of green. Green is my favorite.
Speaker 2Are you telling me, you dress like you eat?
Speaker 3Or favorite. Are you telling me you dress like you eat, or I'm dressed, yes, or the other way around? But in some way, I think all the colors are so incredible, and even my niece. I have a seven-year-old niece and when she was first born it's very interesting because she and I were connected on color and I wanted to know, when she was two, what was her favorite color and even though she couldn't speak, the color she could point. She liked purple, she would wear purple. She preferred to wear purple, she would point to purple. It was like I was communicating with her through color. So I feel like color, just like you were saying. It is spiritual, there's something energetic, there's something subtle about it. I have been told that even people who are blind can feel color. You know there's a change of wavelength, frequency. There's a different dimension to color, right, we know about this just from if you take white light through a prism, you see the different colors, the different frequency bands, the different separations, right?
Speaker 2Well, one of the questions I have and we want to get into colors and foods and your rainbow diet, et cetera. But let's talk about first of all, what people are eating today. Most people, if you would refer to I would refer to as a toxic diet, correct? So what are toxic diets in your mind?
Speaker 3Brown, yellow and white. Brown, yellow and white. So what do I mean by that? Most people are having an inflammatory, accelerated aging brown, yellow and white diet. So they wake up. They have waffles and pancakes and cereal and breads and donuts and pastries, right? Brown, yellow and white. These are foods that are devoid of nutrients that help to feed our vital force within, right. So if the food is processed, we're just giving that energy to the body, right, and we're just getting that quick blip of energy and it's gone. It takes more from us than gives us. So I think that that's why I came out with the rainbow diet, because I was seeing that people just and even you know there were bouts in my life where I wasn't eating so well either. So having lots of, you know when I think of white foods as an example, so my mom like flour for example, flour is white right.
Speaker 3Flour is white, salt is white, sugar is white. And I remember that when I grew up, in the day of white bread and I would be crying because all the other kids at school had white bread, there was something about white bread and my mom gave me this brown grainy. You know, it was like it had seeds in the bread and I would cry that I couldn't have the white bread. And she said Deanna, just tell the kids at school, the whiter the bread, the quicker they're dead.
Speaker 2You don't want white foods. You were so popular with expressions.
Speaker 3It was funny because my sister we compared notes later my sister was able to trade her lunches, but for me I just I stuck with it. But yeah, white foods, yellow foods, and you know what this represents to me, dr Jim, is that people are, they're so burnt out, they're eating like they're living. So when we live fast lives, processed lives, when we don't have the ability to be thoughtful and to be present with where we are, I think we just move quick and we just take whatever comes our way, rather than intentionally take what is required for our body, mind and emotions.
Speaker 2Well, I understand you also believe it's not just the toxicity in food, but even if you're eating a healthy diet, if you have, let's say, toxic beliefs, that will impinge upon your ability to really benefit from a healthy diet.
Speaker 3I'm so glad that you brought that up, because the power of the mind is immense and so if we have toxic ideas about the food we're eating, I think that that only adds to the cascade that can happen in the body. Right, because if we're stressed, what gets impacted? Our gut? And if our gut is impacted negatively, then we can't digest. We can't digest and rest, we're going to be on fight or flight. So now we have inflammation entering in just through our mind.
Speaker 3So that's why sometimes, when I can't be kind of on track with all things and I'm traveling, I try to settle into my mind. I try to remember to set an intention with my meal, have gratitude, be slower in terms of not eating fast, you know, focus, focusing more on the how of eating than on the what, and just do the best. You know, my mom was also, I must say she was, she was very spiritual. I didn't mention this, but one of the things that catalyzed her connection to food was her connection to her faith. And, uh, I was raised Catholic and one of the things was we always said grace before we ate.
Speaker 2And so this is our Lord for these Exactly.
Speaker 3That was the one. That was the one, and we would say grace and I think about that as an adult of how beautiful it is, irrespective of one's religion, just to have a pause and to give thanks, whether it's to give thanks to the animals, give thanks to the plants, give thanks to nature, give thanks to the farmers, give thanks to everybody involved. Right, I think it's so important to come from that place before diving into the food, right, and perhaps even meditate a bit as you're eating.
Seeing People Through Color
Speaker 2I mean, some people do eat alone or sometimes there's not much talk at the table. It almost gives you an opportunity to slow down and think about things and contemplate and obviously your food is digested more easily.
Speaker 3Agree, agree, and you know. And now you mentioned Chinese medicine, now one of the things. I didn't study it outright, but I just as a as an interested person, I was curious, so I read a lot of books, and I read a lot of books on air Veda, which is the more the East Indian form of medicine.
Speaker 3Right and I was seeing that in these traditions there was so much focus on how we ate, the elements of what we're eating earth, air, water, fire. So when you sit to eat it's like coming into that alignment with the elements, with life. I mean, it's really pretty amazing to think of how we eat food and how often we take it for granted.
Speaker 2And how often we're in a hurry when we're eating, and of course, that's as bad as bad food.
Speaker 3Yes, because it hurries along that digestive process. We're not chewing. Well, then we put more burden on our digestive tract. And now you had also talked about the toxic diet. One of the aspects I'm not addressing but it is something that I do focus on when I'm teaching health professionals is the the toxicants in the environment that are circulating, that make their way into our food, air and water.
Speaker 2I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker 3Yeah, so that's a whole other realm and that is more of the heavy metal components, so things like mercury and cadmium and lead.
Speaker 2Then we think about things like plastics and phthalates and parabens, we think about Well, it's in our soil too, obviously, and that's obviously where our food grows, much of our food.
Speaker 3Yes, correct. And so now we displace the important things in the soil, like the microbiome of that soil or the minerals. Lately I've been really intrigued with minerals. So minerals like calcium, magnesium, iron, selenium. There are so many of these minerals and typically we get them from the soil, but because our soils are depleted and I just saw two papers that were published not too long ago showing that, if you look, decade after decade, we're going down, down, down, down down in terms of nutrients in the soil and, just like you said, we're replacing with these toxicants and other things that are landing in it just by way of being in the air, being in the water, it comes down. So it's, we all need to pitch in, you know. We all need to be concerned and be taking steps towards a better planet, because that means a better body for us long term. I agree.
Speaker 2Well, I agree 100%, so so correct. Now you say there are three things that I found interesting. You say think in color, eat in color, and let's begin with oh and live in color. So let's begin with thinking in color.
Speaker 3Thinking in color, positive thoughts, being open and receptive, not closed down and contracted to what we were just talking about, how our thoughts, our energy in that moment are. It's changing our physiology, right. So, thinking color, vibrant thoughts as much as we can, not to say that we ignore the things that are painful in life. But you know, at least for me, I can only speak of what I do. So when I'm thinking in color, I'm always trying to reflect on how am I growing? How am I growing from this experience? What, what can I learn? So that that is thinking in color, trying to see what's the phrase, seeing life with rose colored glasses right, so-huh.
Speaker 3Right. So thinking in color, seeing in color, trying to see and think about a situation.
Speaker 2So then when you're eating in color, it's the same perspective. Uh, obviously, dark meat. Uh, you know, when you think of a hamburger, what color is the meat right?
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2It's dark meat and it's a dark bun, a brown bun. So that obviously is more towards the toxic side.
Speaker 3Yes, it's not balanced. Correct, and not to say that brown and yellow don't have their merit, but it's imbalanced. It's not harmonized with everything else that we need to take in. So if we miss, let's just take blue, purple foods like blueberries and plums and blackberries a lot of those grapes, yes, the grape skin, high in resveratrol.
Speaker 3If we're missing those foods, we're missing out on what they can do for the body, which, if you look at the literature, primarily we see a connection with the brain, with the mood, with cognitive health, with memory, with learning. So then we have a gap. We have a gap. So it's not that brown, yellow foods are bad, because I don't want people to think of them as bad. But what if there was an avocado on that burger?
Speaker 3It could change the whole dynamics of that burger in the body if somebody chooses to eat that burger. And now, where does that come from? There was actually a study done by Dr David Heber at UCLA some years ago and I always go back to this study. I love his work. He's really into color as well and he did this study where he had people eat a hamburger. You could see how the inflammatory cytokines went up in the blood after the meal. So inflammation went up. But when you put half of an avocado on that burger and do the same study again, it flatlines the inflammation.
Speaker 2Well, that's very interesting and I'm happy to know. At least I stopped eating hamburgers years ago, because I find that veggie burgers are just as tasty if you do them correctly. Because I find that veggie burgers are just as tasty if you do them correctly, and I almost always have a veggie burger with a slice of avocado Very nice.
Speaker 3That's great. That's great, and you know, I think we always have to meet people where they're at. Everybody's on a different place of their journey.
Speaker 2Certainly.
Speaker 3And I have you know in this field of personalized nutrition. You know, the American Nutrition Association is an organization that I've been involved with for many years, and one of the things that they advocate is that everything is personalized right, that what is good for one person isn't good for all. Like somebody was just asking me about goji berries. Now, goji berries, you look at them and you would say, well, it's in nature, it's red with good food, but they're also part of the nightshade family, so they may not be good for everybody. Maybe if somebody has a nightshade sensitivity, they might not want to have goji berries in high amounts or in any amounts.
Speaker 2Right. Well, the other thing you mentioned, and I'm really curious about this what do you mean by live in color?
Speaker 3Well, if you think of so, I'll give you an example. Like, I have this program. It's called Whole Detox and it's all about color. So every three days we move through a different color and a different way of eating and a different way of eating. And what I noticed from people eating colorful foods and paying attention to color was that they literally began to live a colorful life. They became aware of the colors around them, of the colors they were wearing. I remember one woman in the group.
Speaker 3she worked in a cubicle, so it was all gray and what she began to do by way of going through the whole detox, she woke up to color and she began to live in color and she brought a colorful banner to work to dress up her gray colored cubicle. There was another woman who had this smoky, gray kind of sofa at home, so she changed up her living room, she began to live at home in color. And if I think of, if color is so powerful on our psyche right, our psychology has changed through color Then to think about the rooms that we live in, to think about the clothing that we wear, to get a certain response, what about the car that we drive in? What about what we see every day?
Speaker 2Often a drab color has something to do with your somewhat drab personality and people wonder why they feel a bit drab about things. But I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think it all adds up, and some people don't even realize it, but they are drawn to certain colors and I know for me, the color that you are drawn to is bringing something into one's life, some kind of recognition, awareness and maybe even healing. The color that we are least drawn to is perhaps one that also needs exploration. So just to give you an example, and I'll ask you what your favorite color is For many years, especially in my 20s, I did not wear orange. I couldn't wear orange or pink. I didn't like those colors at all. They were too feminine for me. They just felt too playful. I wanted something more scientific and navy blue and beige and white and black and brown. You know something more, I don't know. It just had to feel a little bit more scientific.
Speaker 3Yeah, scientific.
Speaker 2And why are you envisioning yourself?
Speaker 3But you know it's interesting, why is science not connected to orange and pink in my mind.
Speaker 1I don't know.
Speaker 3So I this is very well, I find it. You know some things I would just do intuitively. And I started painting in orange and pink. Everything I was painting was orange and pink and it was almost like it was uncontrollable. I wouldn't wear those colors, but I would paint them.
Speaker 2And I realized that orange Because you were missing those in your life.
Toxic Diets vs. Rainbow Eating
Speaker 3I was missing those Exactly. I was polarized, I was removed from those colors. And then that was also part of my waking up to color experience in my late twenties into my early thirties, where I realized, oh, and now I love not orange so much still, but I do like pink. I've moved into a pink phase of my life. So, like just this whole past weekend, I love kind of like a soft pastel pink. I would have never worn this color in my in my twenties, it just wasn't part of my wardrobe. But now I feel drawn. Maybe yellow is the color I need to have more healing with now, because yellow it feels like I'm always, I'm burning, bright. I think that yellow is a color we all love. You know it's radiant, it's like the sun, but if we're not careful we get burnt out, right. You know it's radiant, it's like the sun, but if we're not careful we get burnt out, right, and we have to be attentive.
Speaker 2That's a very good point and I guess we should stress that it doesn't necessarily have to be bright colors in someone's life to enjoy, be happy personally, I mean, you know, obviously it could be calming colors.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And then some people are opposed to colors for various reasons. You asked me about my color chart. You might say spectrum. I stayed away from brown For years. I stayed away from brown why? Because when I was in parochial grade school we had a brown uniform, brown sweater, brown pants, and after a while I said I don't want anything else to do with brown. I've got to go completely different. Only in the last few years have I been able to accept brown again. But in any case, that's me. Everyone has their own individual reason for you know the colors they like or don't like, whatever the case might be. So you can almost enjoy any color and it really doesn't deflate your personality. You could make it a vibrant color, even though it might be a darker color.
Speaker 3Absolutely. I'm so glad that you said that, because there is a spectrum for each of the colors. So with brown it might be a beige tan, more of like a sunflower seed brown, or even a rich, deep, earthy hue of brown. Right, I actually had those same uniforms.
Speaker 2Oh, did you?
Speaker 3You had brown, they were plaid, although I think the boys had like the solid colors, but the girls had like this romper looking kind of dress jumper thing with. That was brown plaid, so I know as I recall.
Speaker 2That's about right. Yes, exactly, boy. I tell you our past, how the influence our present, but in any case, you've you know. The other thing that I'm interested about is obviously, since you've gotten into colors, your rainbow diet. Why don't we talk a little bit about your rainbow diet? That's really fascinating to me.
Speaker 3Sure, well, it's part of the. You know, it's not that I'm an advocate of any particular diet, but I do think that people, when they think of their food, they think of the word diet. So I was trying to reflect on how do we create this vibrancy in our food. If we want vibrancy and energy in our lives, let's start with our food, because that'll wake us up on the inside, it'll wake up our inner rainbow, so to speak, and because people are having a lot of brown, yellow and white foods. Eight out of 10 Americans have a gap in in phytonutrients and colors, and I do think that, regardless of how people eat whether keto, paleo, vegan, vegetarian, whatever people want to call themselves the common denominator through all of us is plants.
Speaker 3Plants, to me, are a divining rod of intelligence from nature. So when we eat plants in our environment, it has compounds that help our bodies to function better. It can help to modulate the body better. So it doesn't matter how we eat. I, even if we eat a lot of plants or a little bit of plants, there's something about plants and I do think that they're very helpful in our healing process. And, as a scientist, if you look at the literature that's been published on nutrition. We can arm wrestle dairy, we can arm wrestle meat, we can arm wrestle soy. I can find as many studies to support as I can to say that you shouldn't eat certain foods, but when it comes to fruits and vegetables, it's pretty. There's no arm wrestling going on. It's pretty solid data.
Speaker 2Well, there's a real balance. You have your green leafy vegetables, you have your vibrant, bright fruits. I mean it seems to be a harmonious balance there.
Speaker 3I mean, it seems to be a harmonious balance there, exactly exactly. And you know, when a plant is stressed, that could be a good thing for us, because if they don't have insecticide, pesticide, herbicide, they have more stress in their environment, which makes them make compounds that are better for us, whereas if an animal is stressed, that leads to compounds in that animal's body that aren't potentially so good for us. So stress to a plant can translate, and that's why we have organically grown food. Why is organically grown food better? Is it because it doesn't have insecticides, pesticides and herbicides? Well, yes, it also has different other stress-related metabolites that that plant has created that can be good for us as humans.
Speaker 2That's interesting. Now, as part of your rainbow diet, you discuss your seven systems of full-spectrum health, so that ties into the rainbow diet correct.
Speaker 3Correct. So when somebody looks at the book the Rainbow Diet, what they will see is that there's a questionnaire. There are questions that go through each of those seven systems. So what I did was I took seven colors, connected those to the seven body systems, connected those seven body systems to certain groupings of food, one of which is the colors of food in each of those categories. So when people do the rainbow diet, what I'm hoping is that they're waking up to thinking oh, number one, I'm not eating the rainbow, or I'm eating the rainbow, but not the kind of rainbow that I really need.
Speaker 3So not the candy. I'm not talking about the artificial colors. I'm talking about nature made colors, right. So not the dyes and not all of the synthetic agents that make things. In fact, you can already see that color is such a powerful force and that's why a lot of those foods we are drawn to it's sugar and color and it just keeps us connected. So it's meant to help people to understand where is their color deficiency when they do the questionnaire. It brings in the body, it brings in how the thoughts are and it helps to get them better on track. And what people can do is they can read each of the chapters on each of the colors, or they can just dive right in and say okay, seven days in a week, seven colors in a rainbow I'm going to focus on. First day is red colors. I'm going to see how that feels. Second day is orange. Third day is yellow. They can do a little mini rainbow diet.
Speaker 2People can choose whatever color sequence they want. Absolutely, it's all an individual choice as opposed to be regimenting to a certain diet.
Speaker 3Correct. And one of the other parts of this to bring out is the art of eating. So often we think of the science of eating, the fear of eating. I think about my past. You asked me about how I grew up. A lot of restriction with eating. A lot of people have a lot of fear when they're eating. They think, oh my gosh, does it have gluten, or will I feel good after I eat this meal? A lot of fear.
Speaker 3What I'm trying to do with the rainbow is to bring in the art, the play, and not so much the head but the heart. I do think that the heart of eating, if we can connect to it emotionally in a fun way, that includes color. And if you think about color, dr Jim, if you think about kids, kids like color, teenagers like color, adults can connect to color. Kids like color, teenagers like color, adults can connect to color, older adults can connect to color. So I can have an 85 year old talk to an eight year old and they can talk about color. And even though there there may be a certain diet that's out there that's more complicated, the rainbow is simple. It's the common denominator for everybody, whether man, woman, for everybody, whether man, woman, child, elder. I mean, I kind of feel like I'm more into the unity of eating rather than the division that comes across with all the diets.
Seven Systems of Full-Spectrum Health
Speaker 2I like that, the unity of eating. And you talked about color. I mean it's all part of our heritage. I mean you go back to what influences his children oftentimes Disney movies, bambi, snow White they were all very colorful movies, all with a wide spectrum. If you look back at those movies, we were influenced by that and that's always been what we consider to be the colors we love.
Speaker 3Absolutely. I think of the movie Wizard of Oz, right.
Speaker 2Yes, especially when it was colorized.
Speaker 3Exactly exactly and how powerful that was. How powerful that was, and I don't have a stop sign. We have nature with a lot of green. We might have the ocean that is blue. We constantly have color inputs that are informing us and you know it's interesting because I do ask people well, what colors are you drawn to? Many people are drawn to green and they tend to eat green foods. That doesn't always work out, but it's just interesting that people. You had mentioned warming colors before, so when I think of warming, it's red, orange, yellow. Cooling would be green, blue, spectrum, purple, and people tend to like those cooling colors. A lot is what I have found.
Speaker 2Well, you know and I love your concept of color, and I do want to point out to our audience that when you're talking about the seven spectrums of color, they really need to go to your website to understand this, because on your website you have a chart that actually shows this. So I want our audience to pay special attention to your website, which is deannaminickcom, and your last name is spelled M-I-N-I-C-H, so that's deannaminickcom, and when you download it, when you go to this, you can download that chart, and when you download the chart, you know exactly what Dr Minick is talking about. So I think that's important and I was also going to point out, just in case you don't have a pen or paper handy, our audience knows very well to go to our website, which is bodymindsoulpodcastnet, and you go to that and we'll have also all of Dr Minnick's information there. So, one way or the other, you have to see this chart to really have a comprehensive understanding.
Speaker 3Yeah, the chart. You're right, I do give that away for free on the website. It's just a downloadable PDF. It's also in my whole detox book. It's my operating system, it's how I think right To think of each of the colors, how it connects to the anatomy, how it connects to physiology or function of the body.
Speaker 3What are the foods, how do we live? And so when some people do the questionnaire, let's just say that they come out where the yellow part needs some healing, right. And so what I do. If you're wondering, like, how do we go from the chart into making a change, because I mean it's nice to have a pretty chart, I'm very interested in how that chart takes people further into changing their lives. So let's just say that somebody opens the Rainbow Diet book, they do the questionnaire, they come up high on yellow, which means that there needs to be some balance in yellow. So then I encourage them to look at their work-life balance. Maybe they're too stressed, they might have digestive issues.
Speaker 3So yellow correlates to the fire element. It's how we burn. We can burn for energy, atp needing to feel vitalized, inspired, or we can feel burnt out, overworked where we need to. We have no energy. We're fatigued all the time. So within each color there's a spectrum, so there's a spectrum of its optimum form and then it's depleted form right.
Speaker 3And when I have had people do this questionnaire, I've had thousands of people do it and I even have a way that you can do it online. If you just go to my website, you can see it from there. 80% of people this is a general estimate have an imbalance in the yellow system of health, which is why I always like to bring it up. So, yes, yellow, yellow, yellow, again fire. So this is in our solar plexus, so it's digestive, it's stomach, liver, pancreas, small intestine, all of the organs that are burning bright. We need them to burn bright Because if they're not burning bright, we're not getting the digestive process moving in such a way that we can actually get the nutrients we need for energy. And what is one of the biggest issues right now in terms of health? It's gut issues.
Speaker 3So, many people that now they're waking up to being bloated, gas pain, reflux, constipated, whatever it is. There are so many gut issues and if our gut's not right, our whole being's not right. I mean, we could say that about anything, truly, but I think that lately there's a lot of attention on the gut and in the seven systems of health that correlates to yellow making sure that we have healthy yellow foods and not processed carbohydrate yellow foods like donuts and cakes and candies and breads so many breads that people are eating.
Speaker 2Better to eat yellow squash.
Speaker 3Yes, in fact I just made yellow squash last night because it's the season, so we had butternut squash, which is kind of a yellow orange high in carotenoids, which is kind of a yellow yellow orange high in carotenoids. Other yellow foods that would be good would be ginger and lemons, and squashes like summer squash, even if it's a different time of year. Quinoa, which is a yellow but higher in protein and less in the starchy starch, right Like where it just it's more processed.
Speaker 2Good suggestion.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2So I have another question. I mean it ties right into this, because you know you offer an interesting journey and you call it 21 days of creativity to change your life. I know that ties into what you've been talking about. Tell us exactly what this program is about, or generally.
Speaker 3I do think that 21 days is like that magic number of days we need to start to affect change in our lives, and so I have a 21 day whole detox program with all the colors, with eating the different colors in the rainbow. So there's that. I also noticed that creativity is something that many people. They kind of push away from creativity. They usually say, well, I'm not an artist or I don't have any time to be creative. They feel like it's a waste of time, and it was part of my healing process was to paint and draw and have wild colors on a canvas, to be looking at those colors.
21 Days of Creativity Program
Speaker 3So what I do in the 21 day approach to getting more creative is it's online. You do it on your own. You just do it at your own pace, cause I don't want to rush anybody through the creative process, but I do guide you, and so I identify that there are seven different creative types. One is a food creative. One is a feeling creative. One is a thinking creative.
Speaker 3So oftentimes the people who are always thinking and strategizing or maybe they're in finance or accounting they say, oh, I'm not creative and I say, but you are, you use numbers, you think, you use your mind to think and problem solve. That is a form of creativity. There's a moving creative people who like to express with their bodies, whether it's through dance or more of a body oriented art. Then there's the speaking creative, there's the visual creative, and then there's what I call the connection creative, who is the person who goes into nature and they get inspired, maybe by a sunset or by the mountains, and then they began to do something. They write poetry or they feel somehow inspired in that great big hole of being connected.
Speaker 3So I think that we have these seven creative types and I take the person through the journey of experiencing each of those creatives within and then you can see well which one do I feel like I most resonate with, Because they're not all equal. Some of them we give more attention to than others, and that's okay. But the goal of that program is to bring out our creative abilities, and creativity is connected right there with healing, in my opinion.
Speaker 2Within a 21-day period of time.
Speaker 3Correct. So every three days a new creative type to explore with different activities.
Speaker 2And they can find this. They can come to your website, if I'm correct, and you can enroll in your 21 days, I'm assuming.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think it's only like $21 or something like that. A lot of these are very low price point, so it just requires that the person shows up and does the work and trips to Starbucks.
Speaker 2That's true.
Speaker 3That's right.
Speaker 2Pastries and bad. I'm sorry I won't get into that, but in any case, noah, that is fascinating. Now, since we're kind of at that time frame, I want to ask you about the books that you've written, because you've written, I believe, six different books. Of course, your Rainbow Diet is your centerpiece, but tell us a little bit about the books that are out there that you've authored.
Speaker 3Yeah, so I I do have six books and the. The latest one that I wrote was the rainbow diet. Before that was a book called whole detox. Now the name is a little bit well, it kind of leaves much to the imagination. But whole detox is the 21 day program. That is all about color. It has recipes in it. So the rainbow diet is a little bit lighter on recipes but the whole detox book is has a lot of recipes. 21 days has a vegan option. It has an omnivore option. So you choose how you want to eat every day.
Speaker 2I see so you're not stuck to vegetarian, especially if you're a meat lover of some type. You have the diets there in that particular book, the detox book.
Speaker 3Correct. Yeah, within whole detox. The only thing I'm bringing in is plants to both different colors of plants every day, and so a lot of people like that book because it's pretty thick. It goes into. Every chapter is about a color, what that color means, how do you heal using that color? And then you're walked into the 21 day program with all of the recipes. And it's not just recipes, it's also emotions and thought exercises, small movements that you can do, physical movements, affirmations, visualizations and meditations. So every day it's like a menu of seven things for the seven systems.
Speaker 2Well, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Speaker 2I wanted to say that also on your website are the books that you've mentioned, and also our audience needs to know they can find the same information on our website, because we're going to be sure to publish it.
Closing Thoughts and Resources
Speaker 2I think it's so important that we know, but now we're looking at a time factor, unfortunately, as always, and thank you is such a limited expression as far as what you've contributed. I mean, there is such a wealth of information. When I went to your website, you know I want to go back to it again and probably again after that, because there is so much there. So I'm really urging our audience to visit your website, which is Deanna Minich, m-i-n-i-c-hcom, or, of course, come to our website. But in any case, thank you again. So much as I say, thank you is limited. You've been wonderful in what you've had to share with our audience and we deeply appreciate it. But in any case and hopefully you might even consider joining us again, where we can get back into it, where people get to know a little bit more about you at least our audience and then we can get into some deeper exploration, maybe the spiritual side, a little bit more.
Speaker 3That'd be lovely. Thank you so much, Dr Jim, for having me. It's been great talking with you. I can tell we're on the same page. We're in the same wavelength.
Speaker 2We certainly are, and again, remember her informative books and what she has to offer. She's also has blogs on there. It's Deanna Minich M-I-N-I-C-Hcom. Or come to our website. Deanna Minich M-I-N-I-C-Hcom. Or come to our website and in any case, I'll be right back after this break with an answer to the question does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? I'll be back, thank you.
Speaker 1Live Healthy Longer is sponsored by LHL Institute, where aging presents a new stage of opportunity, and the longer we live, the more beautiful life becomes. Our website, jamespolikoffcom, contains links to information about Dr Deanna Minnick, as well as her detox program. But, as important, our site also has a great selection of outstanding, informative podcasts, as well as health-oriented blogs written by Dr Polakoff. Again, please visit jamespolakoffcom. That's jamespolakoffcom. Now back to Dr Polakoff.
Speaker 2Speaking again of colors, whether it's red, green or multicolored, does an apple a day truly keep the doctor away? Well, judge for yourself. Apples contain high amounts of polyphenols. These are natural chemicals that play vital roles in promoting health and reducing chronic disease. Eating apples is linked to helping to prevent heart disease, cancer, even diabetes, and apples may also help with weight loss, as well as improving gut and brain health. To learn more about healthy foods, come to our website, jamespolikoffcom, read some of my blogs, which can shed some light on eating better and healthier, and please tune in to a new podcast episode every week. This is Dr Jim Polakoff. Thank you for listening and please remember the words of Voltaire I have chosen to be happy because it's good for my health. Bye.
