Instructions: How do you assemble a colorful palette for your palate? Vegetarian cookbook author and painter Mollie Katzen offers the following tips:

Contrast dark greens, such as spinach, kale and escarole, with bright orange or red vegetables - sweet potatoes, beets, carrots or squash. Youll also be complementing the bitter with the sweet. Very often when colors contrast, flavors do, too, says Katzen.

To brighten up a green salad, add carrots, radishes, orange or yellow tomatoes, corn, purple cabbage, red onion, dried cranberries or lightly steamed yellow squash.

For an easy, colorful side dish, saute sliced bell peppers (red, green, orange, yellow) in olive oil and garlic until tender-crisp.

Garnish platters with bouquets of fresh herbs or edible flowers such as nasturtiums.

Garnish dinner plates with fruit: slices of papaya or mango; wedges of ruby red grapefruit; slices of lemons, oranges or limes; a bunch of grapes or slices of red, yellow or green apples with the skin intact.

Similarly, use color-packed vegetables, such as beets or butternut squash, as an unusual garnish.

Use salad bars as an opportunity to try things you might not stock at home, and choose a wide variety - somebody has done all the chopping and cutting for you. Likewise, take advantage of all the pre-cut, prepackaged and frozen produce items. Just dont smother them in fatty dressing.

For snacks, consider vegetable juices, tomato soup or fruit smoothies made with fresh or frozen fruits and fruit juices.

Animal protein is de-emphasized in the cuisines of many countries. Asian cooking is loaded with green-yellow and white-green vegetables, Italian is heavy on tomato products, and Indians eat a lot of colorful fruits and vegetables, such as okra, sweet potatoes and mangoes.

When eating at a restaurant, survey the appetizer, side dish and dessert sections first, where fruits and vegetables are more likely to be found. Make a meal out of several vegetable-based appetizers and order fruit for dessert. Or split an entree and get extra side dishes of vegetables.

No matter how nutritious a meal might be, remember that we eat with our eyes.

A piece of fish, a potato and cauliflower on a white plate is a perfectly well-balanced meal, says Susan Bowerman of the UCLA Human Nutrition Center. But think how much more appetizing it would look if you draped the fish with tomato sauce and served it with a sweet potato and broccoli.

Know Your Colors

Author David Heber has divided fruits and vegetables into the "seven colors of health." He recommends incorporating foods with a wide range of colors into your daily regimen, including from the following groups:

RED: Tomatoes and tomato products such as juice, soups, sauces and ketchup; pink grapefruit, pink grapefruit juice, watermelon. These foods contain lycopene, which studies have shown reduces the risk of several types of cancer, including prostate cancer.

RED-PURPLE: Grapes, grape juice, red wine, prunes, cranberries, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries. These foods contain anthocyanins, powerful antioxidants that may have a beneficial effect for the heart by inhibiting the formation of blood clots. They also may defend against harmful carcinogens.

ORANGE: Carrots, mangoes, pumpkin, winter squash, sweet potatoes, apricots, cantaloupe. These contain beta-carotene, which improves communication between cells, helping them fight cancer.

ORANGE-YELLOW: Oranges, orange juice, tangerines, yellow grapefruit, peaches, lemons, limes, papayas, pineapples, nectarines. These fruits are all high in Vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant that helps protect cells.

YELLOW-GREEN: Collard, mustard and turnip greens; yellow corn, green beans, green peas, avocado, honeydew melon. These contain lutein, which protects the retina from radiation, reducing the risk of macular degeneration - the primary preventable cause of premature blindness in the United States.

GREEN: Broccoli, Brussels sprout, any type of cabbage, kale, cauliflower, watercress. These contain sulforaphane, isothiocyanate and idoles, phytochemicals that enhance the breakdown and excretion of cancer-causing compounds in the liver.

WHITE-GREEN: Garlic, onions, chives, leeks, scallions, shallots. These alliums contain sulfur compounds that protect DNA. Other white-green fruits and vegetables, including asparagus, pears, artichokes, endive, mushrooms, celery and white wine, are rich in flavonoids - antioxidants that protect cell membranes.

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