The Red Lunch

This week's theme at my daughter's daycare is colours.  So naturally, I was excited to incorporate the theme into her lunch box.  Each day this week I'll focus on a different colour.  Today I chose red.

The Roma tomato quesadilla is stuffed with refried beans and Daiya cheese. There's a red cabbage coleslaw (oops, I forgot the sunflower seeds!) strawberries sprinkled with ground flax, and an Ethiopian-style stew with red & white nugget potatoes, chickpeas, carrots and a dash of cayanne and other spices.

Although my little chica is too young to understand the health benefits of her brightly coloured lunch, I found myself intrigued and did a little bit of research. Lance Armstrong's website livestrong.com contains a wealth of information about the benefits of coloured food.

According to one of thier articles, "red fruits and vegetables, such as tomatoes and beets, may help reduce the risk of several types of cancer, especially prostate cancer, and red berries may act as powerful antioxidants that protect cells from damage."