Make your festive feast healthier

We all dream of a white Christmas, but our thoughts of snow-covered rooftops are enhanced by visions of red and green. No one's sure why they've become the colours of Christmas, but red and green at the table also herald festive feasts. But fill a plate with colourful foods and you're doing a lot more than pleasing your eyes. Red and green foods -- mainly fruits and vegetables -- are rich in nutrients. They also balance the traditional foods we love with delicious, low-calorie options. Here are our 10 picks for colourful superstars.

The red foods

Beets
If you're pregnant or planning to get pregnant over the holidays, you'll certainly be concerned about the health of your baby. You may want to consider eating beets: this vegetable is a source of folate, the B vitamin that helps reduce a woman's risk of having a baby with a neural tube defect such as spina bifida. Beets also contain potassium and fibre -- and only 50 calories per cup (250 millilitres). Their rich purplish-red colour comes from betacyanins, plant pigments that are being studied as possible cancer-fighting agents. You can enjoy them as a colourful side dish, in a salad, pickled or in a soup.

Cranberries
Give a traditional touch to your holiday table by setting a bowl of crimson cranberry sauce next to the turkey. Cranberries also contain anthocyanins -- phytochemicals that are not only healthy but also responsible for the fruit's brilliant colour. Cranberries provide vitamin C and fibre, plus compounds that appear to help prevent urinary tract infections. There are also studies exploring their heart-protection potential.

There's more than sauce to cranberries; add them to stuffing, nibble on dried cranberries or pour yourself a cool cocktail of cranberry and orange juices mixed with bubbly water.

Pomegranates
Open up a pomegranate and you'll find hundreds of edible seeds surrounded by translucent red pulp. The juicy pulp is bursting with flavour as well as vitamin C and more potassium than a medium-size orange. Pomegranates are also rich in anthocyanins and ellagic acid, both powerful plant chemicals that help fight heart disease and cancer. You can slice up a pomegranate, bite into the seeds or remove them to sprinkle into a fruit or vegetable salad. The juice is delicious on its own, as a glaze on poultry, in jams, jellies, sorbets and chutney, or as topping on a baked apple. You can squeeze out the juice using a juicer, or buy it in the refrigerator section of your supermarket.

Sweet red peppers
Red peppers are the darlings of the healthy food basket. They're among the most nutrient-rich vegetables around, each one containing more than 100 per cent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C, as well as generous amounts of beta-carotene. They're also an excellent source of lutein and zeaxanthin, two carotenoids that help lower the risk of macular degeneration, one of the leading causes of blindness in older adults. They are not just healthy; they're also one of the most versatile vegetables. You can enjoy them raw in salads, make them into a dip, add them to poultry stuffing or roast them for an antipasto platter. What's more, one pepper contains only 25 calories.

Tomatoes
The fire-engine red colour of tomatoes comes from lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that reduces the risk of prostate cancer in men. Women may benefit from lycopene, too. Researchers at Harvard University reviewed the diets of about 40,000 women and found that those who ate seven or more servings of tomato-based foods (including tomato juice, tomato paste, tomato sauce or even pizza) a week had a risk of cardiovascular disease that was nearly 30 per cent lower than women who didn't eat these foods as frequently. Tomatoes are also a source of vitamins A and C, potassium and fibre. Enjoy them tossed fresh in salads, roasted as part of an appetizer, in a casserole, as a sauce or as the juice in a festive bloody mary.

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