A whole foods diet involves eating natural, unprocessed foods. While preparing homemade meals from scratch may take more time in the kitchen than choosing ready-to-go microwaveable options, it may also be healthier and tastier options.
Starting a whole food diet may seem intimidating. Here are some helpful hints to get your started on the path towards healthful living.
Fruits & Vegetables
At the heart of any healthy, whole food diet lies fruits and vegetables – an abundance of vitamins and minerals can help lower rates of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes.
Fruits come from plants’ developed ovaries which produce seeds while vegetables develop from roots, stems and leaves of plants. Chefs generally use flavoring profiles as criteria when classifying something as either vegetable or fruit.
Eating more whole and minimally processed foods is one way to improve the overall quality of your diet, by decreasing saturated fat, added sugars, and sodium consumption. Furthermore, whole food diets contain plenty of dietary fiber that can help you manage weight and avoid digestive problems.
Meat & Fish
The whole foods diet emphasizes fresh, minimally processed ingredients without artificial additives and is low-fat and high-fiber diet with moderate amounts of protein, healthy fats and carbohydrates from vegetables, grains, nuts and legumes.
From a scientific viewpoint, meat refers to the flesh from warm-blooded animals such as sheep, pigs and cows; fish is not considered meat due to being cold-blooded and therefore doesn’t fall within this definition.
Culinary traditions and religious practices play a pivotal role in categorizing meat and fish products. Catholicism for instance has long held to its tradition of prohibiting consumption of meat on Fridays while fish remains permissible.
Dairy
Whole Foods Market is an excellent destination to find nutritious and organic dairy products. Their selection includes milk, yogurt, cheese and kefir; in addition they carry many natural alternatives, like soy and almond milk.
A whole foods diet emphasizes eating minimally processed food. This means avoiding packaged, canned, and frozen items with excessive amounts of sugar and salt. While some forms of processing such as roasting pistachios or bagged lettuce are acceptable; as long as their ingredient lists only contain minimal additions.
John Mackey is well known for his unconventional business practices at Whole Foods Market. He promotes open discussions among employees regarding salaries and even instituted a policy which allows employees to view one another’s paychecks.
Grains & Beans
The USDA has recently updated their Dietary Guidelines for Americans and now recommends that half of our grains should be whole, rather than refined. Whole grain foods contain the full nutritional profile (bran, germ and endosperm). By contrast, refined grains have been stripped of these valuable components of nutrition.
Beans and grains are staple proteins of a whole foods diet, so serving up quinoa with black beans and corn salsa would likely garner top marks from many nutritionists.
Beans are legumes belonging to the Fabaceae plant family and grains are seeds from grass plants. Peter works with local farmers to grow food grade corn and edible beans for supply to bakeries, restaurants, and wholesalers.
Nuts & Seeds
Nuts and seeds are staples in many whole food diets, such as the Mediterranean and Paleo eating patterns. Nuts and seeds provide abundant amounts of unsaturated fats, protein and fiber; as well as heart-healthy omega-3 fats; they’re also known to prevent disease-fighting plant chemicals such as ellagic acid, flavonoids, phenolic compounds luteolin and isoflavones.
Technically, nuts and seeds are plant embryos; however, most people think of them as food with a protective outer shell that serves to nourish its content. Nuts and seeds contain high amounts of dietary fiber, iron and zinc while providing many fatty acids (primarily unsaturated), antioxidants and phytochemicals – providing numerous health benefits! Individuals with allergies should check labels carefully as nuts may contain trace amounts of allergens.
