Some background before we begin.

The main visible colors of carotenoids aka “vitamin” A in fruits and vegetables are yellow, orange, and red.

On the other hand, the white or cream-colored parts of fruits and vegetables contain almost NO colored carotenoids.

This is pretty simple to demonstrate.

Take the same type of fruit, compare a white-fleshed version to a carotenoid-colored version, and watch what happens.

The study Carotenoids in white- and red-fleshed loquat fruits analyzed 23 loquat cultivars—11 white-fleshed and 12 red-fleshed.

The researchers found that the red-fleshed cultivars had 10.8 TIMES higher levels of colored carotenoids in the flesh.

Then look at their calculated “vitamin A” values:

White-fleshed loquat: 0.49 µg/g dry weight

Red-fleshed loquat: 8.77 µg/g dry weight

8.77 ÷ 0.49 = 17.9

Nearly 18 TIMES more “vitamin” A in the red flesh.

WHITE = MUCH LESS “vitamin” A.

Remember that.

Because once we start looking at the human health research according to the COLOR of the fruits and vegetables people are eating, things get VERY interesting.

Nature already uses color as a POISON warning

There is another concept that belongs in this discussion.

Aposematism.

Aposematism is the use of conspicuous coloration by an organism to advertise that it is toxic, poisonous, dangerous, or otherwise unpleasant to eat.

This is not controversial biology.

Animals use warning colors.

Plants use warning colors.

Predators learn those colors and avoid what displays them.

In Contrasting coloration in terrestrial mammals, the aposematic colors described include:

“bright red, orange, yellow or white in combination with black”

Now think about the major colors produced by carotenoids.

YELLOW.

ORANGE.

RED.

Coincidence?

I don’t think so.

Even better, the scientific literature directly supports the idea that stronger warning displays can correspond to stronger toxicity.

The paper Warning displays may function as honest signals of toxicity states:

“brightness of aposematic displays correlates positively with the strength of toxicity”

Read that again.

BRIGHTER warning display = MORE toxicity.

This wasn’t pulled out of thin air either.

One of the primary studies behind that statement is The evolution of coloration and toxicity in the poison frog family (Dendrobatidae).

The researchers compared coloration and toxicity across poison-frog species.

Their result:

“toxicity and coloration have evolved in tandem”

The brighter, more conspicuous coloration tracked with toxicity.

Their statistical analysis showed a significant relationship between the evolution of coloration and the evolution of overall toxicity.

Nature uses COLOR to communicate.

Sometimes that message is:

DON’T EAT ME BRO or you’ll FAFO.

And yes, PLANTS use aposematism too

This is particularly important because people tend to think of warning coloration as something only insects, frogs, snakes, etc. do.

Nope.

Simcha Lev-Yadun’s Aposematic (Warning) Coloration in Plants reviews this phenomenon specifically in plants.

His summary is pretty straightforward:

“Aposematic (warning) coloration is a common defense in plants”

The paper specifically lists:

yellow

orange

red

brown

black

and combinations of these as colors used in plant aposematism.

An earlier paper, Aposematic (warning) Coloration Associated with Thorns in Higher Plants, documented conspicuous warning coloration associated with plant defenses in more than a thousand species.

This is Nature.

Color means something.

Plants spend ENERGY making pigment compounds.

They aren’t doing it so influencers can make pretty smoothie bowls for Instagram. 🤪

Batesian mimicry may explain why some brightly colored foods are different

This brings up another VERY interesting concept:

Batesian mimicry.

Batesian mimicry is what happens when a relatively harmless or edible organism copies the warning appearance of a toxic, poisonous, or otherwise defended organism.

In other words:

The genuinely dangerous organism establishes the visual warning.

Predators learn:

THAT COLOR/PATTERN = DON’T EAT IT.

Then another organism comes along and essentially says:

“Hey, that works. I’ll look like THAT too.”

It gets some of the protection of an aposematic warning signal WITHOUT necessarily having the same toxic chemistry behind it.

A review of mimicry defines a Batesian mimic as:

“an edible species that resembles...an aposematic species”

That concept may fit VERY well with something I’ve noticed about plant colors.

Remember:

I am NOT saying every red, purple, blue, or brightly colored plant food is loaded with “vitamin” A.

The CHEMICAL producing the color matters.

There are two very different situations here.

One is coloration produced by carotenoids.

Yellow.

Orange.

Red.

Those are the colors I am most interested in as actual chemical warning signals because the pigments THEMSELVES are carotenoid “vitamin” A.

Then we have foods colored by substances such as:

• anthocyanins

• cyanidins

• proanthocyanidins

• other polyphenols

These can produce deep red, purple, blue, and related colors while having COMPLETELY different chemistry.

So maybe some polyphenol-rich plant foods are doing something analogous to Batesian mimicry.

They are wearing the warning colors...

WITHOUT carrying the same carotenoid payload.

Think about that.

A purple berry can look conspicuous.

A red apple peel can look conspicuous.

A blueberry can look conspicuous.

Yet the compounds producing those colors are NOT the same compounds producing the orange in a carrot or the red in a tomato.

Same general visual warning territory.

Very different chemistry underneath.

You have to know WHAT is making the color.

Carotenoid red/orange/yellow?

That’s the warning I care about.

Anthocyanin/polyphenol red, purple, or blue?

We don’t really want those either (polyphenols slow ALDH as a general rule, one of our most important detox enzymes), and it’s a completely different chemical situation.

Batesian mimicry gives us a much better way to think about this than simply lumping every bright plant color into the same category.

Some foods may be carrying the color warning chemistry.

Others may simply be wearing the warning colors.

Which brings us to APPLES

Apples are an extremely interesting food in this whole discussion.

The flesh is basically white.

It is EXTREMELY low in “vitamin” A.

Then the colored SKIN contains lots of polyphenols and a bit of carotenoids.

That is a very different arrangement from a fruit or vegetable where the entire edible flesh is loaded with carotenoid pigment.

It should not be surprising that apples look good in the research.

What might surprise you is just HOW good they look.

Let’s start with a favorite topic.

“Fruit makes you fat.”

Nope!

The review Weight Loss Associated With Consumption of Apples looked at apple-feeding experiments in animals and humans.

The review concluded that apple consumption in different forms produced weight loss in overweight subjects.

Then we have actual population data.

Consumption of apples is associated with a better diet quality and reduced risk of obesity in children: NHANES 2003–2010 included 13,339 children.

Whole-apple consumers had lower BMI z-scores.

More importantly:

The paper reports:

“whole apple consumers were...30%...less likely to be obese”

The above papers are for all the people who think:

“Fruit makes you fat.”

Nope!

Apples and chronic disease

Here’s a good overview:

Apple phytochemicals and their health benefits

The authors state:

“consumption of apples” has been linked with reduced chronic-disease risk.

Cancer.

Cardiovascular disease.

Asthma.

Diabetes.

Apples aren’t some nutritionally useless bag of fructose.

Not even close.

More apples = less DYING

This is a really interesting one.

Apple intake is inversely associated with all-cause and disease-specific mortality in elderly women followed older women for 15 years.

The more apples the women ate, the lower their cancer mortality.

Their conclusion included:

“regular apple consumption may contribute to lower risk of mortality.”

And here’s another extremely interesting part of this paper:

BANANAS.

The researchers found that higher total fruit AND banana intake were associated with lower cardiovascular mortality.

I’m going to add something else interesting about the colored polyphenols we mentioned above.

Bananas contain polyphenol oxidases, an enzyme family that breaks down polyphenols.

Not only is the part of the banana we eat white-ish, it contains enzymes that break down the polyphenol colors of other fruits and veg…and this makes it HEALTHIER than other fruit (except maybe apples and pears, as you’ll see).

Apples.

Bananas.

Two fruits that are EXTREMELY low in “vitamin” A.

Not a coincidence, IMO.

Apples and cancer

Here’s a systematic review and meta-analysis:

Apple intake and cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

Their conclusion was simple:

“consumption of apples is associated with a reduced risk of cancer”

Add that to the mortality study above showing less cancer mortality with greater apple intake.

The pattern continues.

What’s that? Apples AND pears reduce diabetes risk?

Pears are another extremely low “vitamin” A white-fleshed fruit.

The meta-analysis Apple and pear consumption and type 2 diabetes mellitus risk found an 18% reduction in type 2 diabetes risk associated with eating apples and pears.

Even better, they found a dose-response relationship.

Every additional serving per week was associated with another 3% reduction in diabetes risk.

MORE apples and pears.

LESS diabetes.

But I was told FRUIT SUGAR was the problem...

LOL.

Apples also improve post-meal blood sugar handling

Here’s a direct human experiment:

Acute Effects of Dried Apple Consumption on Metabolic and Cognitive Responses in Healthy Individuals

The researchers reported:

“dried apples could reduce postprandial blood glucose”

They also found evidence suggesting improved insulin responses.

Again:

Fruit.

Apples.

Better blood-sugar handling.

Apples and sexual function

Yep.

There’s research on that too.

Apple consumption is related to better sexual quality of life in young women

The researchers concluded:

“regular daily apple consumption and better sexuality in our young women population”

I’m not going to pretend that’s the most important reason in this article to eat an apple.

But there it is!

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away”?

Somebody actually investigated this.

The study was:

Association Between Apple Consumption and Physician Visits: Appealing the Conventional Wisdom That an Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Daily apple eaters used fewer prescription drugs.

The authors wrote:

“Apple eaters were…more successful at avoiding prescription medications.”

I’ll take it.

Apples improve antioxidant status in actual humans

This wasn’t just an observational food questionnaire.

Researchers actually had elderly subjects consume apples and measured endogenous antioxidant-related parameters.

Effects of apple consumption on plasma and erythrocyte antioxidant parameters in elderly subjects

Apple consumption significantly increased the body’s own antioxidant enzyme activity (glutathione and superoxide dismutase) and blood antioxidant potential while decreasing measures of oxidation.

Again.

Actual apple FEEDING.

Actual physiological changes.

Then there’s apple PECTIN and “vitamin” A

This may be my favorite mechanistic apple paper.

Anti-Oxidative Activity of Pectin and Its Stabilizing Effect on Retinyl Palmitate

Apples are rich in pectin.

The researchers looked at pectin’s antioxidant activity AND what it did to retinyl palmitate.

Retinyl palmitate is a storage form of toxic “vitamin” A.

What happened?

Pectin REDUCED the degradation of retinyl palmitate.

The researchers stated:

“degradation of RP was reduced following the addition of pectin.”

Less retinyl-palmitate degradation means less opportunity to generate the more reactive/damaging downstream retinoid compounds.

So think about the apple package here:

Almost no “vitamin” A in the white flesh.

Polyphenol-rich skin.

Pectin.

Pectin that stabilizes retinyl palmitate.

Then look at all the positive outcomes in the research.

See why I like apples?

Now zoom out: WHITE foods in general

Here’s where this goes from:

“Apples are really good foods”

to something much bigger.

Researchers have actually separated fruit and vegetable intake according to the COLOR of the edible portion.

Remember what we established at the beginning.

White/cream-colored flesh = VERY little colored carotenoid “vitamin” A.

Let’s see what happened.

WHITE fruits and vegetables and STROKE

This is one of my favorites.

Colors of fruit and vegetables and 10-year incidence of stroke followed 20,069 men and women for 10 years.

The researchers separated fruits and vegetables into four groups:

Green

Orange/yellow

Red/purple

White

Here comes the good part.

Their results stated:

“Green, orange/yellow, and red/purple fruits and vegetables were not related to incident stroke.”

Nothing.

Now let’s look at WHITE.

The highest white-fruit-and-vegetable intake group had a hazard ratio of:

0.48

That’s about a 52% LOWER risk of stroke compared with the lowest intake group.

Every additional 25 grams/day of white fruits and vegetables was associated with another 9% lower stroke risk.

And what foods accounted for most of that WHITE intake?

APPLES AND PEARS.

They made up 55% of it.

Of course they did.

White fruits.

Almost no “vitamin” A.

And once again...

looking GREAT in the research.

The researchers concluded:

“High intake of white fruits and vegetables may protect against stroke.”

WHITE.

Not orange/yellow.

Not red/purple.

WHITE.

WHITE and GREEN foods and cardiometabolic health

Then we have:

Colors of fruits and vegetables and 3-year changes of cardiometabolic risk factors in adults: Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study

Researchers followed 1,272 adults.

In men:

More WHITE and GREEN fruits and vegetables = less belly-fat gain and better cholesterol-related measurements.

The authors themselves concluded:

“Various colors of FV subgroups had different effects”

Exactly.

Different colors.

Different chemicals.

Different outcomes.

You can’t just scream:

EAT THE RAINBOW!

and pretend they aren’t consequences to that advice.

WHITE and GREEN foods and colorectal cancer

Now look at this one:

Colors of vegetables and fruits and the risks of colorectal cancer

This included 923 colorectal cancer patients and 1,846 controls.

For MEN, comparing the highest to the lowest intake:

GREEN fruits and vegetables: OR 0.49

WHITE fruits and vegetables: OR 0.47

That’s approximately:

51% lower odds with GREEN

and

53% lower odds with WHITE.

White and green fruits and vegetables were also inversely associated with colorectal cancer in women.

Now look at the orange/yellow category in men.

This included:

citrus

carrots

pumpkin

peaches

persimmons

ginger

OR:

1.61

That’s about 61% HIGHER colorectal cancer odds.

The authors state:

“orange/yellow vegetables and fruits...was linked to an increased risk”

That last part is IMPORTANT.

INCREASED colorectal cancer risk with greater intake of YELLOW/ORANGE fruits and vegetables.

What colors are most associated with carotenoids?

YELLOW.

ORANGE.

Exactly.

I’m noticing the pattern. Are you?

WHITE foods got so ignored that scientists held a conference to defend them

This is almost comical.

Purdue University actually convened an entire scientific roundtable called:

White Vegetables: A Forgotten Source of Nutrients.

FORGOTTEN.

Why?

Because everyone had been brainwashed with:

“Eat brightly colored vegetables!”

“Eat the rainbow!”

“White foods are bad!”

The researchers pointed out that U.S. dietary guidance specifically called attention to dark-green and orange vegetables while having NO comparable recommendation for white vegetables.

They also pointed out an extremely important problem:

“Emphasizing color as a marker...eliminates white vegetables”

Exactly.

Their paper noted the nutritional contributions of white vegetables including:

fiber

potassium

magnesium

And here’s something REALLY interesting from their discussion of the stroke study.

They noted that white potatoes had actually been excluded from the white-fruit-and-vegetable category.

Because potatoes contain lots of potassium, and potassium is associated with lower blood pressure, they pointed out that including potatoes might have made the white-food stroke association look EVEN BETTER.

LOL.

Even the researchers defending white foods were dealing with the bias against white foods.

Anti-white patterns being recognized here and elsewhere, anyone?

Why GREEN foods also tend to look good

Green foods deserve an explanation here.

The green color itself is mainly chlorophyll.

There are carotenoids underneath that green color too, BUT lots of foods we call “green vegetables” also contain huge WHITE portions.

Think:

green cabbage

green onions

zucchini

cucumber

celery

leeks

So it makes perfect sense to me that GREEN, especially LIGHT green, often tracks closely behind WHITE in these color studies.

And that is exactly what happens.

White and green look good for colorectal cancer.

White and green look good in the cardiometabolic study.

Meanwhile the strongly carotenoid-associated yellow/orange group gives us some very mixed—and often BAD—results.

Now put the aposematism piece back into this

This is the part that I think people are going to have the hardest time unseeing once they understand it.

Nature uses COLOR as information.

In animals, bright conspicuous coloration commonly means:

TOXIC.

POISONOUS.

I TASTE BAD ON PURPOSE.

DON’T EAT ME.

Research in poison frogs found that toxicity and coloration evolved together.

Research modeling warning displays describes how brighter aposematic displays can honestly advertise greater toxicity.

Aposematism has been documented extensively in plants too.

The most obvious warning colors?

Yellow.

Orange.

Red.

What are the major visible carotenoid colors?

Yellow.

Orange.

Red.

Then we look at the food research.

White plant foods?

Looking great.

White-fleshed apples and pears?

Looking great.

Bananas?

Looking great.

White and green groups?

Looking great.

Orange/yellow?

Not looking so great.

Then we compare white and carotenoid-colored flesh in the SAME fruit and get almost an 18-FOLD difference in “vitamin” A.

You can call all of that a coincidence.

I don’t.

“Eat the rainbow” is kindergarten nutrition

The more I look at this, the more ridiculous “eat the rainbow” becomes.

There is no nutrient called:

COLOR.

Yet nutrition advice takes completely different chemicals with completely different metabolic effects and throws them together because...

They make pretty colors?

That’s not chemistry.

That’s a preschool activity.

Which all makes sense when one realizes the introduction of the “Eat the Rainbow” psyop to the US was done in the early 2000s through Sesame Street and Crayola.

Apples, pears, and bananas keep telling the same story

Let’s summarize what we have here.

APPLES

Extremely low “vitamin” A.

Whitish flesh.

Pectin.

Research showing:

Less obesity

Lower diabetes risk

Lower cancer risk

Lower cancer mortality

Lower overall mortality

Better antioxidant status

Better post-meal blood sugar response

Less pharmaceutical medication use

Even better sexual quality-of-life measurements in women.

PEARS

Extremely low “vitamin” A.

Whitish flesh.

Often having LIGHT green skin.

Research showing:

Lower diabetes risk

And apples + pears together made up 55% of the WHITE category in the study where high white fruit and vegetable intake was associated with about HALF the stroke risk.

BANANAS

Extremely low “vitamin” A.

Pale flesh.

Associated with:

Lower cardiovascular mortality.

Then zoom out.

WHITE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Almost no colored carotenoid “vitamin” A.

Associated with:

~52% lower stroke risk at the highest intake

Lower colorectal cancer risk

Better cardiometabolic measurements

Then GREEN comes along right behind WHITE.

And in the colorectal-cancer research, the orange/yellow category was associated with 61% HIGHER odds of that cancer in men.

Not a subtle difference.

This is NOT a coincidence

I don’t believe apples, pears, and bananas just HAPPEN to be extremely low in “vitamin” A while repeatedly looking fantastic in the research.

I don’t believe WHITE fruits and vegetables just HAPPEN to show these kinds of disease associations.

I don’t believe Nature just HAPPENS to use the yellow-orange-red spectrum as warning coloration while carotenoids just HAPPEN to be yellow, orange, and red.

The pieces fit WAY too well.

Nature uses color to communicate.

Animals understand that.

Predators understand that.

Plants use it too.

Humans (or corporations) somehow took Nature’s warning system and decided:

MORE BRIGHT COLORS = MORE HEALTHY!

Brilliant.

Maybe Nature knew what it was doing before nutritionists arrived.

The Bottom Line

Apples, pears, and bananas are AMAZING foods based on the research.

They also happen to be extraordinarily low in “vitamin” A.

White fruits and vegetables repeatedly look excellent in disease-outcome studies.

Green ones often follow closely behind.

Yellow/orange carotenoid-rich groups don’t consistently show the same pattern and in at least one colorectal cancer study went in exactly the WRONG direction.

Meanwhile:

White versus carotenoid-colored flesh of the SAME fruit can mean almost an 18-FOLD difference in “vitamin” A.

Warning coloration is used throughout the animal kingdom.

Warning coloration exists throughout the PLANT kingdom.

Greater warning-color intensity has been associated with greater toxicity.

The classic warning-color spectrum prominently includes:

YELLOW.

ORANGE.

RED.

Carotenoid colors.

So when Nature puts that warning label on something, maybe the smartest thing we can do is stop assuming the warning means:

“SUPERFOOD! EAT MORE!”

Apples.

Pears.

Bananas.

White fruit.

White vegetables.

Green vegetables.

Extremely little “vitamin” A.

Amazing research.

Not a coincidence.