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The concept of Nutrivore is very simple: Choose foods such that the total of all the nutrients contained within those foods adds up to meet or exceed our daily requirements for the full complement of essential and nonessential (but still very important) nutrients, while also staying within our caloric requirements. The easiest way to do this is to have the foundation of the diet be a wide variety of nutrient-dense whole and minimally-processed foods including selections from all of the nutritionally distinct food families.
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Reduce, Don’t Restrict
Studies have shown that a dichotomous way of eating, i.e., diets defined by a yes-list and no-list (or variations of this eating behavior such as red-light versus green-light foods, or high-points versus zero-points foods), increase the risks both of developing eating disorders and regaining lost body weight (yo-yo dieting). Furthermore, the popularity of diets that demonize specific foods while lionizing others propels classism in diet and health—food elitism increases the cost of healthy foods. A variety of studies have shown that greater income increases access to healthy foods, and income is but one social determinant of health.
The Nutrivore philosophy appreciates the inherent nutritional value of foods, without labeling any food as good or bad in the context of a healthy diet. By extension, no singular food choice is a bad one, and Nutrivore fully embraces treats, cultural foods, and food traditions, without derision. The goal of Nutrivore is not weight loss which means not every food you eat needs to be the pinnacle of nutrient density—your diet can meet your nutritional needs while including some low nutrient-density, quality-of-life foods. Furthermore, there is no one perfect Nutrivore eating plan—there is a ton of flexibility of food intake that aligns with Nutrivore principles. And, Nutrivore celebrates every small step you take towards consuming a more nutrient-replete diet – something that will help with improving your overall well-being including all sorts of health issues such as heart disease, and high cholesterol, blood pressure, and/or blood sugars. That is the overall goal of Nutrivore, not weight loss.
That means you can have a nutrient-dense, health-promoting diet without restrictive eating! Choose more foods that help meet your nutritional needs and let those displace some, but not all, of the less nutritively valuable foods. By intentionally incorporating quality of life foods you make it a sustainable approach because the diet you follow or don’t follow now does not impact your long-term health, what does is your lifelong eating patterns. Nutrivore is not a diet program focused on weight management, it’s a way of life!
There Are No “Bad Foods”
Even if a food doesn’t work for you as an individual, or for a group of people, that does not make it a “bad food.” Getting away from labeling foods as bad, even if we are allergic, helps to let go of needing to lay blame if an accidental exposure happens. Then, we can get straight to a solution-oriented mindset, and look for ways to reduce the risk of that happening again, or ways to mitigate it if it does, like carrying an Epipen.
Of course, some individuals may still need to eliminate foods due to sensitivities or allergies, or may choose to eliminate certain foods to conform to a specific dietary structure, but this in no way prevents us from achieving nutrient sufficiency, although it may necessitate thoughtful selection from the included foods. For those diets that eliminate all sources of specific nutrients—such as a carnivore diet, fruitarian diet, and some implementations of a ketogenic diet—a Nutrivore approach can still be used to improve the quality of the diet even if the ultimate goal of Nutrivore may be out of reach. In these cases, it’s additionally important to work with a nutritionist, registered dietitian, or your doctor to identify nutrient shortfalls and supplement accordingly.
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Focus on What to Add to Your Diet
Food restriction doesn’t work over the long term, but if no food is off limits, how do you improve diet quality? My answer is to focus on what you can add to your diet, rather than what you take away.
The nutritionally distinct foundational Nutrivore foods are vegetables in general, alliums, cruciferous vegetables, mushrooms, root vegetables, leafy vegetables, fruit in general, citrus fruits, berries, nuts and seeds, legumes, and seafood. This means that these food families each have something uniquely beneficial to offer us and we maximize both our nutrient density and health benefits when we focus on these foods as the foundation of our diet. But, this does not mean these are the only foods to eat on Nutrivore; instead, it means that getting all of the nutrients your body needs from the foods you eat will be easiest when you prioritize these foods as the foundation of your diet. Let those health-focused choices crowd out most, but not all, of the foods that aren’t doing your health any favors. Embrace quality of life foods as a way to make overall healthy eating sustainable. In short, reduce, don’t restrict.
Increase Diet Diversity
Coming from a restrictive dietary philosophy, one of the hardest things to do when adopting a permissive dietary approach is increasing diet diversity, especially when it comes to incorporating foods we previously viewed as “bad”. It helps to learn more about foods with an open mind, and is important for both our physical health, because it helps us adopt a healthier diet, and for our mental health because it helps us have a better relationship with food.
Studies show that the more different foods we eat (preferably whole or minimally processed), the better! One way to measure this is Dietary Species Richness, the number of different species represented in the diet during a 1-year period. One of my favorite diet biodiversity studies was published in 2021, and included nearly half a million people, living in nine European countries, and followed for 22 years! The people in the highest quintile of Dietary Species Richness (81 or more different species in the diet over the course of a year) had a 37% reduced risk of all-cause mortality (a general indicator of health and longevity) than those in the lowest quintile of Dietary Species Richness (48 or fewer different species in the diet over the course of a year). The authors calculated that, for every additional 10 species we consume annually, all-cause mortality decreases by 10%! The authors further analyzed 10 different food groups (vegetables, tubers, legumes, fruit+nuts+seeds, dairy, cereals, meat, fish+shellfish, eggs and condiments) and showed that, while variety in veggies was maybe slightly more important, there was no one food group that was substantially more important to mix it up than any other. Quite simply: the more different foods we eat, the healthier (on average) we’ll be!
It’s tough to extrapolate a target number of different foods per day or per week from this study, but when looking at the field as a whole, something like 12 different whole foods per day, and 35 over the course of the week, would be a great goal! That being said, we definitely need more studies to be able to nail that down more definitively!
Easily track your servings of Nutrivore Foundational Foods!
The Nutrivore Weekly Serving Matrix
The Nutrivore Weekly Serving Matrix digital resource is an easy-to-use and flexible weekly checklist designed to help you maximize nutrient-density and meet serving suggestions of Nutrivore foundational foods, all without having to weigh or measure your foods!
Includes a 22-page instructional guide and downloadable interactive guides.
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cITATIONS
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Hanley-Cook GT, Huybrechts I, Biessy C, Remans R, Kennedy G, Deschasaux-Tanguy M, Murray KA, Touvier M, Skeie G, Kesse-Guyot E, Argaw A, Casagrande C, Nicolas G, Vineis P, Millett CJ, Weiderpass E, Ferrari P, Dahm CC, Bueno-de-Mesquita HB, Sandanger TM, Ibsen DB, Freisling H, Ramne S, Jannasch F, van der Schouw YT, Schulze MB, Tsilidis KK, Tjønneland A, Ardanaz E, Bodén S, Cirera L, Gargano G, Halkjær J, Jakszyn P, Johansson I, Katzke V, Masala G, Panico S, Rodriguez-Barranco M, Sacerdote C, Srour B, Tumino R, Riboli E, Gunter MJ, Jones AD, Lachat C. Food biodiversity and total and cause-specific mortality in 9 European countries: An analysis of a prospective cohort study. PLoS Med. 2021 Oct 18;18(10):e1003834. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003834. PMID: 34662340; PMCID: PMC8559947.