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What Foods Are Best to Limit?
All foods can fit into a healthy diet! What makes the diet healthy or not healthy is not the presence or absence of any particular food. What is important is whether your nutritional needs are being met by the overall diet. Despite fear mongering messages, remember just because one compound in a food is harmful to one biological system, that doesn’t mean the whole food is bad for the whole us!
Should I Worry About Mercury in Seafood?
No, you don’t need to worry about mercury in seafood! While it’s true that seafood contains methylmercury, nearly all fish and shellfish have more selenium than methylmercury. Since mercury binds irreversibly to selenium, the selenium-bound methylmercury can’t negatively impact us by interfering with our selenium-dependent enzymes, which are responsible for protecting our brains from oxidative damage.
How Can I Increase My Nutrient Intake?
The three most important action steps to increasing our nutrient intake include choosing whole foods more often, eating a varied diet, and eating more veggies and fruit. This may seem overwhelming in the beginning so let’s discuss easy first steps and tips to help make this transition to healthy eating sustainable, always remembering every step we take delivers health benefits, and progress is greater than perfection.
Which Mushroom Is Most Nutrient-Dense?
Wondering which mushroom is “best”? The answer is all types of mushrooms are super nutrient-dense and great for your health! Mushrooms contain an impressive amount of essential vitamins and minerals per calorie, while containing unique dietary fiber types not available in other foods, and the “longevity vitamin” – ergothioneine. We’re ranking common edible mushrooms based on nutrient-density, but spoiler-alert, the “best” mushroom is the one you like and will eat!
Should I Worry About Heavy Metals in Chocolate?
No, you don’t have to worry about heavy metals in chocolate! While it’s true that chocolate contains some of the highest levels of cadmium and lead in our food supply, based on the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for lead and cadmium, you’d have to eat a lot of chocolate daily in order to be concerned. Let’s dig into the math and find out exactly how much!
Does the Nutrivore Score Correct for Bioavailability?
The Nutrivore is not corrected for bioavailability because it varies from individual to individual. Factors influencing bioavailability include health of the gut microbiome, nutrient status, competitive binding with other nutrients, meal composition, various drugs and supplements, time of day and biorhythms, age and gender to name a few. These factors are too complex to be corrected for in a nutrient profiling system.
Do Multivitamins Work?
Studies show multivitamin supplementation does not benefit our overall health even though obtaining nutrients from food has a protective effect. It’s unclear why multivitamins aren’t effective but is likely a combination of a number of factors such as differences in bioavailability, or synergy with other nutrients typically found together in foods. Targeted supplementation based on specific nutrient deficiencies identified by a healthcare professional is effective but overall multivitamin supplementation cannot compensate for a diet lacking in essential nutrients.
How Many Servings of Fruits and Veggies Per Day?
How many servings of fruits and veggies should we be eating every day? For fruit, most studies show either 2 or 3 servings per day, and most studies show that benefits from vegetables level off around 3 to 5 servings. If you’re struggling to include enough fruits and veggies in your daily routine, think of the lower end of these ranges as a good goal, remembering that every bit counts. Studies show that every serving of fruit or vegetables we eat daily reduces the risk of all-cause mortality by 5% to 8%!
How to Use the Nutrivore Score
The Nutrivore Score is a measurement of nutrient-density that does not impart value judgement on food. It is a tool that can be used to identify the most nutrient-dense foods within food groups to inform day-to-day choices. There is no Nutrivore Score above which a food is considered “good” and below which the food is considered “bad”. When it comes to lifelong health, it is the quality of the diet as a whole, not individual food choices, that is key.
What if You Hate Veggies?
Yes, there is a secret to loving vegetables! Healthy eating patterns shouldn’t be stressful and they shouldn’t trigger your gag reflex. So, let’s talk about ways of preparing vegetables so that you like them and how you can leverage the psychology of food preference to your advantage.
What is the Most Nutrient-Dense Food?
Canned clam liquid (aka clam juice) has a Nutrivore Score of 14,744, making it the most nutrient-dense food in the world. It is a low-energy density food that is especially rich in vitamin B12 (cobalamin), copper, phosphorus, and selenium.
Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Versus Canned Fruit and Vegetables
Canned fruit and veggies can be even more nutrient-dense than fresh because they are picked at peak ripeness, maximizing nutrient density, and they’re processed quickly which helps preserve nutrients. Canned produce is safe to consume as our bodies efficiently eliminate BPA and the average human exposure to BPA is much less than levels of concern.
Tips for Adopting a Non-Restrictive Diet
You can have a nutrient-dense, health-promoting diet without restricting by choosing more foods that help meet your nutritional needs and letting those displace some, but not all, of the less nutritively valuable foods. In other words, reduce but don’t restrict. By focusing on what to add to our diets and increasing diet diversity, while intentionally incorporating quality of life foods, we can develop a sustainable approach for lifelong eating patterns that positively impact our long-term health.
Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Versus Frozen Fruit and Vegetables
Frozen fruit and veggies can be even more nutrient-dense than fresh because they are picked at peak ripeness, which maximizes nutrient density, and they’re processed quickly which helps to preserve all their valuable vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, even over long-term storage!
Defining Nutrivore
Nutrivore is the revolutionary yet simple dietary concept: Get all the nutrients our bodies need from the foods we eat. Or, if you’re looking for a soundbite: A Nutrivore eats nutrients.