Foods that are nutrient-dense contain a high amount of vitamins and nutrients relative to the number of calories they have. Opting for these foods will provide support to both your body and mind and keep you more energized compared to consuming empty calories from processed snacks and sugary foods.
Embarking on a journey to enhance your health can be daunting, particularly when it comes to formulating a diet plan that you can adhere to.
A good starting point is to make a list of foods that are packed with nutrients and aim to incorporate a different one each week. Eating seasonally is also a fantastic way to increase your food choices. Consider visiting a nearby farmers market for fresh local produce that changes with the seasons.
It’s important to keep in mind a balanced and gradual approach when making healthy modifications to your dietary habits, as this will ensure sustainability and account for various factors.
Nutrient Density
The nutritional value of a food is determined by the proportion of its beneficial components to the calories it contains. To recognize foods that are high in nutrients, analyzing their nutritional makeup is the most straightforward approach.
Foods that contain abundant amounts of protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals are considered the most nutritious. However, if a particular food contains excess sodium, sugar, and saturated fats, it is not beneficial for your body in the long term.
Although foods that contain added sugar, saturated fats, and trans fats may be enjoyable to eat, they do not provide significant support to the crucial functions of your body and could potentially cause fatigue following a brief energy boost.
The Significance of Nutrient-Rich Foods
Essential vitamins, minerals, amino acids (which make up protein), fatty acids, and other nutrients are provided by healthy, whole foods. A nutrient-rich eating plan could also be referred to as an anti-inflammatory diet, which is crucial in preventing chronic illnesses and risk factors such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity.
Your nutrient intake in relation to your daily calorie intake may play a role in determining your overall health, according to several professionals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture cites various components, such as nutrient intake, in determining the general quality of people’s diets.
- The level of micronutrients and macronutrients they obtain per calorie that they eat.
- Whether they continuously eat an appropriate amount of calories (in the form of macronutrients) in order to meet their individual needs. This means the ability to avoid excessive caloric intake but also avoiding under-eating or nutrient deficiencies.
- Avoidance of toxic substances, such as trans fats, sodium and refined sugars.
From a different perspective, consuming 600 calories of fast food French fries does not provide the same amount of nutrients as consuming 600 calories of kale would, based on the calories-to-nutrients ratio.
Similarly, consuming 600 calories of brown rice does not equate to consuming 600 calories of kale. Despite being a natural food, brown rice lacks the density of nutrients present in kale (and many other foods).
Oatmeal scores 53 on Dr. Fuhrman’s “Nutrient Density Scale.” To put it into context, consuming four bowls of oatmeal is equivalent in nutrient density to consuming a single bowl of strawberries. Moreover, one would need to consume around 20 bowls of oatmeal to meet the same nutrient levels found in one bowl of kale!
How To Make Your Diet More Nutrient Dense
It may seem difficult, but enriching your diet with more nutrients is actually achievable. However, it demands careful consideration, preparation, and regularity to achieve optimum health benefits. Nevertheless, the outcome is valuable as your body will benefit from higher-quality nutrition that it needs.
1. Add more leafy greens
Spinach, collard greens, and kale are abundant in minerals, fiber, and vitamins while having a low calorie count, making them ideal for a healthy diet.
One can add them to salads, pasta dishes, or smoothies if they don’t enjoy their taste. Choosing greens as the foundation of your meal over carbs can enhance your general wellbeing as it provides a variety of nutrients.
2. Eat The Rainbow
Inspect your plate and ideally, it should exhibit a spectrum of colors. Consuming a vegetable-rich dish with a variety of colors such as red, green, purple, orange, and yellow can give you a sense of alertness and contentment.
Although it may not be feasible to include all colors of the rainbow in every meal, it can serve as a beneficial objective and a prompt to consume a diverse array of colors during each meal and throughout the day. The color of foods often correlates to their nutritional content, so if your snacks or meals skew towards pale or colorless, make an effort to incorporate colorful options to increase your nutrient intake.
Including a greater variety of colorful pigments in one’s diet has been found to enhance health outcomes, according to the meta-analysis of 86 studies encompassing over 37 million participants. The study revealed that health improvements included variables such as body weight, lipid levels, inflammation, mortality, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.
3. Eat protein with each meal and snack
Consuming protein assists in maintaining satiety for an extended period and provides support to diverse bodily processes such as immunity, muscle development, and emotions. For a holistic nutritional intake, try including a variety of protein sources in your diet, such as animal proteins like meat, eggs, and poultry as well as plant-based options like nuts, beans, tofu, seafood, and lentils.
It is generally recommended to consume approximately 20-30 grams of protein per meal and 10-20 grams of protein per snack.
4. Eat more fruits and vegetables
Include a fruit or vegetable in every meal and snack as they are rich in micronutrients. Aim to consume a minimum of 5 servings per day.
It is crucial to consume a diverse range of fruits and vegetables as they each possess unique nutritional compositions. If consuming them separately proves challenging, they can be blended into smoothies or protein shakes, added to soups, sauces, dips, or pasta dishes.
5. Opt for whole-grain foods
Including whole grains in your diet is crucial for good health and is a dietary staple across numerous cultures. Essentially, whole grain refers to the entirety of a grain, comprising of the bran, germ, and endosperm. The nutritional value is largely packed in the bran, which is removed in processed foods and refined grains. Consequently, consuming whole grains is more beneficial for getting essential nutrients.
Whole wheat, oats, buckwheat, bulgur, barley, brown rice and quinoa are among the nutrient-rich whole grains. Opting for whole grains rather than refined grains can decrease the likelihood of developing chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease.
6. Create balanced meals
When examining a classic serving of macaroni and cheese, one can easily notice that it is not a well-rounded dish. To put it simply, it is deficient in nutrients such as protein and color. The objective is to ensure that every meal consists of the three macronutrients, including protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats, as well as various micronutrients like vitamins and minerals.
Although nutrient density scores are useful in selecting nutritious foods, it is important to take other factors into consideration. If you solely consume foods with high nutrient density scores, your diet may lack sufficient amounts of healthy fats.
Consuming only the most nutrient-dense foods would lead to an excessive intake of fiber and inadequate calorie consumption each day, which could harm an individual’s health by causing malnourishment, decreased energy levels, slower metabolism, weakness and issues related to mood.
Consume a diverse selection of actual foods that you find appetizing, incorporating all food groups (including fats and proteins along with plants), and you will already be headed towards a balanced, nutrient-rich diet. Reframe your mindset to concentrate on the types of foods that you should be eating rather than dwelling on the ones you ought to avoid.
However, creating a nutrient-dense meal doesn’t mean you need to get rid of what you love. Instead, make a few swaps to add more nutrients. Start by switching the white pasta for whole grain and/or high protein pasta in your macaroni and cheese recipe, and then add a handful of broccoli and chopped chicken. Following a nutrient-dense diet does occasionally require some creativity.
7. Eat a variety of nutrient-dense foods
Although there is no single superfood that can fulfill all of your dietary requirements, it’s common to opt for familiar options repeatedly due to our habitual tendencies. To overcome this, consider adding a diverse set of nutrient-rich foods to your meals each week and experiment with unique recipes that feature various fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and proteins.
Including different types of food in your diet will ensure that you obtain a diverse set of minerals and vitamins, which can help you avoid any dietary deficiencies.
8. Avoid highly-processed foods
According to Michael Pollan, an author and speaker, there are 80,000 edible plant foods known to mankind. Out of these, around 3,000 have been or are still commonly used in human diets. However, despite this abundance, just four industrialized crops, namely corn, rice, soy, and wheat, which are highly subsidized, make up more than 60% of calorie intake across the globe.
The issue lies in the fact that individuals depend on nutrient-poor foods for a significant portion of their daily caloric intake. Unlike whole foods that contain a multitude of vital nutrients at a low caloric cost, processed foods are high in “empty calories” that lack genuine nutritional value.
Which foods lack nutrients? Instances of foods and drinks that are low in nutrient density are as follows:
- Processed meats (bacon, salami, cold cuts, etc.)
- Instant noodles
- Convenience meals
- Sugar-sweetened beverages (soda, sweet tea, juice, sports drinks)
- Refined vegetable oils
- Potato chips
- Margarine
- Store-bought cookies, cakes and pastries
- Artificial sweeteners
- French fries
- Granola bars
- Ice cream and sweetened yogurts
- Breakfast cereals
- Refined grains
- Candy bars
- Fast food
9. Buy organic (and ideally local) produce
Purchase of organic produce is certainly a positive move towards preventing hazardous chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and GMOs. However, it is not always essential to buy organic and may not always be the optimum option for enhancing the nutrient content of your diet.
Don’t aim for perfection, just do your best. Explore farmers’ markets, participate in a community-supported agriculture program, or try growing some organic produce during the summer.
10. Focus first and foremost on eating whole foods
There is a tendency among individuals to oversimplify the role of foods in human consumption. However, it is not appropriate to solely quantify and categorize foods based on their distinct nutrients.
While processed foods may contain synthetic vitamins, this alone does not deem them healthy. Focusing solely on the fundamental nutrients present in foods rather than the intricate amalgamation of compounds in whole foods can result in losing sight of the overall perspective.
To put it differently, labeling a cereal box as “high in omega-3’s” may seem simple, but this does not guarantee that the product is beneficial for your health. Instead, prioritize consuming nutrients through natural sources to the greatest extent possible.
A further concern is that a significant number of beneficial antioxidant phytonutrients have yet to be identified and quantified, thus ensuring their acquisition is solely achievable by consuming a range of the most nutritionally rich foods found in nature.
It may be inferred that foods with the highest levels of familiar nutrients, such as leafy greens and berries, also have the greatest quantity of advantageous but unidentified compounds.
How Foods Lose Nutrient Density
It is widely acknowledged that a considerable number of Americans fail to consume adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. Additionally, even those who do may not receive the full range of expected nutrients. The phrase “nutrient degradation” pertains to the decline of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients in food caused by factors such as reduced soil quality, food production, processing, and transportation, as well as the relatively lower impact of cooking and heat treatment of food.
A study conducted by The Globe and Mail and CTV News in 2002 concluded that the nutrient content in fruits and vegetables sold by Canadian supermarkets had significantly decreased in just one generation.
The analysts discovered that the average potato found in supermarkets has experienced a decrease in nutrient levels over a span of 50 years.
- 100 percent of its vitamin A
- 57 percent of its vitamin C and iron
- 50 percent of its riboflavin
- 28 percent of its calcium
- 18 percent of its thiamine
Similar results were obtained after analyzing twenty-five types of fruits and vegetables. Despite being considered a popular superfood, modern-day broccoli may contain around 63 percent less calcium and 34 percent less iron compared to previous eras, as per certain studies.
According to Phil Warman, an agronomist, the degradation of nutrients can mostly be attributed to modern farming practices and the focus on the market.
Warman found that today’s food producers prioritize appearance, storability, and transportability over the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables. The emphasis is on high-yield production and disease-resistance rather than the nutritional content of foods.
According to Tim Lang, a professor from the U.K., consumer rights are at stake because people assume oranges have a consistent nutritional value when in reality they don’t. To match the iron intake of their grandparents, individuals would have to consume five oranges in one day, and to get the same amount of vitamin A, they would need to consume about eight oranges.