Episode 193: Why Eating The Rainbow Is A Lie

TRANSCRIPT

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Alopecia Angel Podcast. I’m your host, Johanna Dahlman. Today we’re gonna be talking about how eating the rainbow is an absolute myth and lie, and why. But before I do, I wanted to go ahead and invite you to the free training we have going on. It already started last week and we have 2 more training days this week on Tuesday and on Thursday. The free training is how to heal and reverse your alopecia naturally in 6 steps. I can’t wait to show you the process and the ways of healing that don’t work for you, that work for you, the factors that are needed and so much more. I will put the link in the show notes for you, and if not, feel free to reach out to us at any point at hello@alopeciaangel.com.

And now, eating the rainbow. This is probably one of the biggest myths I’ve ever heard, and it’s just a flat out lie. Why? For many reasons. And take this from somebody who’s lived abroad in multiple countries. I’ve lived in Brazil, I’ve lived in Argentina, I’ve lived in the Netherlands, I’ve lived in Japan. I’ve lived in the US and within the US I’ve lived in 5 different states. I grew up in California and within all my travels of not just living abroad but traveling to over 66 different countries I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that eating the rainbow does not exist, except in certain places of the world, and I’ll go into that in a second.

Eating the rainbow is a slogan, and it’s a relatively new slogan. It’s probably popped up within the last 10-15 years, maybe less. I’ve heard doctors say it. I’ve heard parents say it. I’ve heard nutritionists and dieticians say it, but it’s such a load of horse manure. It’s such a load of horse manure because not everyone has that possibility or availability. So for example, when I lived in Japan, you go to any and all supermarkets and trust me, I scoured all the supermarkets and it was the hardest thing just to find organic anything, first off. Second off, what you’re gonna find throughout the year is a lot of root vegetables, a lot of root vegetables that you can’t even pronounce, that you don’t even know the name of, that look like maybe dinosaur aged. And yet, they are vegetables that the Japanese eat and use on a regular basis.

On top of that, the possibility and availability of fruit is very limited. They actually focus more on sweet potatoes, and they have these readily available all the time. They also focus more on red bean paste, which is like a sweet treat. And they also focus more on chestnuts, which are also seasonal. Persimmons are seasonal. And so these types of things that are seasonal are their way of having something sweet, outside of let’s say matcha treats or cakes or this type of thing. But their fruit availability is very limited to

just maybe apples, grapes and oranges, and only sometimes. You’re not gonna see lots of bananas, you’re not gonna see lots of strawberries, you’re not gonna see blackberries, you’re not gonna see raspberries, you’re not gonna see a lot of these things be cause all those things are called exotic fruits for them.

And the same thing goes with regular vegetables that potentially you and I are very accustomed to. For example, I remember there’s this one time where I was at the supermarket. It was quote unquote like the fanciest supermarket in my town at the time, and they had Brussels sprouts, but they had a little basket of brussels sprouts, meaning they had only 6 kernels of brussels sprouts. And these 6 kernels cost like 10 times what they would cost in the US. It was like a ridiculous amount in US dollars, and I was not gonna pay for 6 kernels of brussels sprouts what was I gonna do with these six kernels? I could have popped them in my mouth right then and there, especially when you think back to buying a full bag and making a salad or buying a full bag, like a really, like a pound, 2 pound bag and sauteing them and drizzling them with, some olive oil and garlic and whatnot.

Knowing and having that experience of having brussels sprouts in the US, I knew that these brussels sprouts in Japan were overpriced and only for certain connoisseurs. Certain people with a certain amount of pocket money so that they can have their brussel sprouts in Japan, flown in probably from the US or Canada. It’s that type of thing that eating the rainbow isn’t available to everybody. If you start thinking, if that little basket of brussels sprouts was only available at this one supermarket, not anywhere else in my town of like 500,000 people, then how come only a certain amount of brussels sprouts in these baskets were available.

It’s because not everyone’s gonna buy them. Just like not everyone’s gonna buy caviar. Just like everyone’s not gonna buy octopus. Not everyone’s gonna buy certain delicacies around the world. It’s just not everyone’s cup of tea, it’s not everyone’s first choice. I knew what these brussel sprouts were. I wanted them, but the pricing was ridiculous. Just like at the same point when I went to Costco in Japan and a box of 14 pomegranates from California were flown in and they were charging $45 for a box of 12 pomegranates. It’s absurd. It’s one of those things where you start to think, okay, there’s some people in Japan, clearly. Want them clearly purchase them because they’re there. Costco has them for a reason, and at the same time, it’s one of those things where it’s not truly available or realistic for everybody.

So eating the rainbow should be more swayed into eating locally and seasonally, because that’s what the rest of the world does. Whoever came up with that slogan is probably a spoiled American in many ways. Because growing up in California, I never knew what a brussels sprout was. It’s not because I didn’t have access to a Brussels sprout, it’s because they were never in my supermarkets to begin with. And so, brussels sprouts only came into my life and into my world probably when I was in my late 20s, early 30s so maybe 10-15 20 years ago almost.

We’ve become better at exporting and importing and at trade, especially with food, with more and more partners, and then also getting food that wouldn’t spoil to one place to another. And so we’ve gotten better at this, but eating the rainbow is not realistic. When I lived in the Netherlands for 5-6 years. In the wintertime especially, it was the worst time to be there because you had very limited options for vegetables. It was carrots, it was potatoes, it was onions, it was broccoli, and maybe some like frozen cauliflower and that was it. The only time you actually had a beautiful array, a beautiful cornucopia of fruits and vegetables of all different colors was in the summer. That was the only time.

And if you think about it, that’s when things are harvesting. That’s when things are being planted, and things are coming to market. You can bring things in from Italy, from France, and from other places, or even from Spain that have a longer season of growth. But in the Netherlands, for example, that season of having an array, a beautiful array of fruits and vegetables, is only limited to June, July, and August. That’s it. Once September hits, you’re back to the same old and it’s really depressing. If I may say it’s really depressing because you have to try to, make creative meals with just what you have. And the thing is, this slogan pushes us, forces us to believe that it’s a different way that it’s a different way of life that we should be living, and it’s a lie.

So don’t feel pressured into eating the rainbow all year long or every day of your life because it probably is not gonna happen, and depending where you live, you probably don’t even have access to it. Do you think the Japanese have access to all the beautiful fruits and vegetables that they do at a Whole Foods in California? They don’t, do you think that they have the full array of a Trader Joe’s in Miami? They don’t, it’s quite startling what’s available to them in certain markets. And yes, I’ve traveled to Kyoto and to the bigger cities like Tokyo, and yes I’ve been to the organic stores there, but it still doesn’t compare. It’s still very limited. A lot of times these organic stores actually don’t even have anything fresh. They may have maybe one or 2 things fresh, and the rest of it is either processed or, comes in a baggie or comes in a sort of processed box of some sort.

And so, thinking that, just finding in your organic store is gonna take care of everything, it’s not. Because depending on where you live, the seasonal, the local and what’s available is what you need to adapt to. And that’s how we’ve all adapted around the world. Except for now, where, you can find dragon fruit in Mexico and you can find avocados all year long in the US and you can find different things. Back in my 20s I traveled a lot throughout the US and some of it was for work. Some of it was for fun. But what I did notice was the stark difference going from California to New York. But I also realized is that in New York City, you couldn’t find a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables like you could in California.

And for those of you who don’t know California tends to be the bread basket of the US in many ways. We are the ones that are growing almonds all year long, we’re the ones that are growing pomegranates, strawberries all year long. We’re the ones that a huge, long growing season. And even in the dead of winter, like you can still get fruit off the trees and this type of thing. And so, living in California was very special and I think that

not everywhere is just like California and just not everywhere is like Miami. In Miami, when I lived there, you could see papayas growing off the trees, just even in parking lots or even just on the side of the street or the side of the sidewalk, and it was happening all year long. That doesn’t happen in a lot of places and probably the majority, 75% of the world, it does not happen.

And so, this slogan of eating the rainbow is probably, someone who invented it and coined it and it caught on like wildfire is doing a disservice, not just to you and me, but to everybody else in the world thinking that they’re being deprived of not eating the rainbow, that they’re at a disservice, that they’re at a disadvantage for not eating the rainbow, when in reality is they’re probably doing just fine eating what’s local and what’s nutritionally beneficial for them in that season. When I lived in the Netherlands, there was a time and a place where you could find pumpkins, like real pumpkins. For example, being an American abroad, I always wanted to make pumpkin pie. And the first year, it was like I was trying to get my bearings straight and I was not understanding the whole, market situation of what was available. I still had my mindset of: Oh, I’ll be able to find it somewhere. They have to have pumpkin somewhere.

And lo and behold, they didn’t. And so what I ended up doing is I started going to, of course, the fresh farmer’s markets and then I made friends with the farmers and I made friends with butchers and I made friends with the people who sold cheese and the people who sold like raw milk and everything else. I made friends with everybody at the supermarket, especially the organic stuff. And that season of getting pumpkins was so short, it was probably maybe a month and a half long. That was it. And in that month and a half long, that was when I was doing everything pumpkin. I would make my recipes with pumpkin ’cause I love pumpkin and I love the seasonality of pumpkin spice and just everything pumpkin I absolutely adore, but you can’t find it abroad.

So for example, in the US when we start getting into the fall season, which is now, you start seeing pumpkin everything everywhere, from coffee shops to restaurants, to anywhere you name it, everything is pumpkin. But that’s not the way it is in Japan or in the Netherlands, or even in Brazil or in Argentina or anywhere else that I’ve lived. It’s not like that. And so, what I found is that when you find something, grab it. Because that season is gonna be short. So I was squirreling away the pumpkins and the squashes and the different types of squashes that they had and whatever it is that they had available is how I made my pumpkin bread or my pumpkin pie, or whatever it was that I wanted to make.

So going back to the original that eating the rainbow is an absolute lie. It is because where you live is just perfect. What it is that’s beneficial for you. Now, I understand that we may crave certain foods at certain times of the year that we can’t get. I understand that, and that’s the beauty of travel, and that’s the beauty of introducing yourselves, and that’s the beauty of also importing and export. But at the same time, understand that you don’t need to pressure yourself into eating the rainbow every day, succumbing to a slogan when in reality it’s a disservice. It’s a disadvantage that the majority, the 99.9% of

the world cannot obtain or meet eating. The rainbow, the way I see it at least, it should come as a natural evolution.

For example, if you travel, then you know it happens and you expose yourself to new foods, you expose yourself to new things and you ta you taste and you try and you see how things are prepared. So for example, I’m traveling right now and a lot of the meals are made with cactus, and so they have cactus fruit in the morning, they have cactus in the evenings with dinner or with lunch, and so cactus is a big staple here for for their meals. Now, where I live, cactus is not a thing. We don’t have cactuses or cacti. And yet, it’s here where I am right now, and so I take advantage of it and I eat it. And so, that creates more diversity, within my health within my gut, and within everything else. But at the same time, you shouldn’t force yourself to eat something when it’s not available to you, or it’s not even possible for you to get.

For example, in Japan, there was a lot of things that were impossible for me to get, impossible for me to obtain. And the same things in the Netherlands, a lot of things were impossible. And so have grace and have compassion of where you live and what’s happening. You have options, right? You can move, you can decide where you wanna live. If you don’t wanna move, you can always travel and you can always buy things online sometimes, and maybe it’ll come in a jar or maybe it’ll come in a certain aspect. Maybe it’s, it has some sort of liquids or something to, preserve it, but it’s possible. And or maybe even people ship it. Like I know even companies within the US that they ship all different types of things from, corner to corner within the states.

So maybe within your country there are vendors that ship as well. And so that’s something to think about, but don’t force yourself or think that eating the rainbow is the only way to live, because that is absolute nonsense. It’s a nice to have, but it’s not reality. Because if you think about it, let’s say before import, export, before all this trade has happened and has exploded really, we were just eating locally and seasonally, and many people still do all around the world. If anything, that should be our go-to. If anything, that should be our focus, to eat seasonally and naturally and to enjoy, just like I did squirreling away those pumpkins and those squashes, because this is the time, it’s the time to do that right now versus, pulling out some mango or pulling out papaya and thinking like that’s natural and seasonal when in reality it’s not.

For people let’s say in colder regions, if you’re living in Miami right now. Papaya and mango are definitely in season, so it’s one of those things where you have to see and decide where you live and how it is that is available to you, for you, for your health, for your family, but then also without giving into these pressures of eating the rainbow, because I think that’s nonsense. And in many ways you can circumvent that by embracing what’s local to you and then seeing what’s possible. Maybe you can have a greenhouse, maybe you can grow your own fruits and vegetables and start your growing season earlier.

But depending where you are, that growing season is non-existent. And so I was actually talking to some people in Denver, and they were telling me that their growing

season is so small, it’s only maybe 2 months, a month and a half. And this is why a lot of fruits and vegetables, especially the exotic stuff, are not readily available. And even if you were to go to a Whole Foods, you have a shortened window of what’s available to you at a certain time. So things to note, things to take away from here is that eating the rainbow is a myth. It’s an absolute lie. Eating locally and seasonally is your best bet for you, for your family, for your health.

And then also when you travel, embrace the new foods, embrace the new options, and try it. This is a good opportunity for you to also expose your children to new foods when you travel as well. And because they can try something new and they can also incorporate it. I read this post from a doctor the other day about re eating the rainbow, and they were saying, your body’s craving such and such nutrients, that’s also a myth. Because if you were born and raised in Minnesota, or in Saskatchewan, or in Winnipeg or in Adelaide or in Tokyo, your body doesn’t necessarily crave the things from other countries. It’s craving what’s local, what’s seasonal, and probably what your mom ate when you know she had you in utero.

And so, it’s one of those things where we have to read through the lines because even doctors, whether they’re good doctors or bad doctors, but they’re also leading us astray with these slogans and these really high achieving marks that not everyone can meet. It’s unfair to mislead people, and this is why I wanted to do a podcast post about this because, eating the rainbow is only truly available if you are jet setting from one place to the other and having locally grown things flown in all the time. It’s not possible. If any of you have travel, which I’m assuming you have, you’ll see that the fruits and vegetables from different countries are gonna look a little different from yours, even if it is a banana to a banana, even if it is an apple to an apple. They’re gonna look a little different, and it’s because they’re getting it from different regions within their own country, probably, or maybe from other countries.

And so understand that your body is perfect the way it’s made, it can heal, it can reverse its own hair loss, so join me in the training. But then also understand that eating the rainbow is a myth. And there’s a lot of myths and slogans out there that are not conducive to our wellbeing, to our mental health, or to even our expectations or to our realities. And so again, I didn’t grow up with brussels sprouts, they came into my life in my mid 30s and that’s okay. Now they’re a part of my life. It’s just you’re opening yourself up to more and more things. And again, that’s what trade has done. It’s opened us up to more and more things.

So I hope you walk away with this, a) Joining my free training, but b) Understanding that pressure of that slogan is a disservice. Eating locally and seasonally is your best bet.

Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to talking to you next time. Take care.