Nutritious foods contain more vitamins, minerals, and other healthful compounds per calorie than others, helping you meet recommended daily intake levels for key vitamins such as B12, folate, calcium, and iron.
Opt for food that provides essential vitamins, minerals, complex carbohydrates and lean proteins while limiting intake of empty calories found in processed products like cookies, candies and salty snacks.
Fruits and Vegetables
Health claims and tips often emphasize the importance of including vegetables and fruits in one’s diet. Although distinguishing fruit from vegetable may be confusing for non-botanists, generally anything derived from flower ovaries is considered fruit, while vegetables refer to leaves, stems, roots or bulbs.
A new study ranks vegetables based on their nutrient density, and finds that watercress, cabbage, kale and beet greens rank highest for providing plenty of potassium, calcium folate and vitamin A per calorie.
Nuts
Nuts (with the exception of chestnuts) and peanuts offer an optimal nutritional density, providing a significant intake of healthy minerals (calcium, magnesium and potassium) relative to calories consumed. Furthermore, they contain protein, fibre and L-arginine, an L-amino acid precursor of endogenous vasodilator nitric oxide production.
Epidemiological studies have established a link between nuts consumption and reduced coronary heart disease risk factors. Furthermore, intervention studies suggest they have positive impacts on novel CHD risk factors like oxidative stress and inflammation as well as vascular reactivity.
Make the switch from “fillers,” such as bread, crackers and potato chips that provide calories but no nutrients to “nourishing foods” like fruits and vegetables, nuts seeds and whole grains that offer more essential nutrition for success.
Eggs
Eggs are a nutritious food with moderate energy requirements, providing 66 kcal and 6.4 g of protein per medium egg. Furthermore, they offer 10% of your recommended daily phosphorus intake that’s essential to creating DNA/RNA molecules, healthy bones and teeth, muscle contraction, as well as cell signalling pathways.
Eggs contain vitamin C, lutein and zeaxanthin–antioxidants–in addition to protein that stimulates muscle protein synthesis after resistance exercise more efficiently than other sources. Furthermore, they’re low in saturated fat content and an excellent source of dietary cholesterol.
Lean Meats
Protein provides your body with essential amino acids it needs to repair tissues, support immune function, and increase strength and fitness. Lean meats such as poultry, fish and lean cuts of beef are excellent sources of protein.
Lean meats provide essential zinc and iron nutrients. Furthermore, their B vitamin content – particularly niacin and riboflavin – plays an essential role in energy metabolism.
Opt for skinless chicken, turkey and lean cuts of beef such as sirloin or tenderloin when possible; avoid fatty red meats like bacon and sausage and when shopping for ground beef choose lean options with 90%-95% fat reduction.
Seafood
Seafood is an excellent source of both protein and heart-healthy omega-3 fats. Additionally, seafood contains essential vitamins such as vitamin D, selenium and B vitamins – making it one of the healthiest choices available to us!
Choose seafood harvested or farmed sustainably to reduce pressure on depleted wild fish stocks and help preserve marine environments.
Nutrient-dense foods are whole, unprocessed foods packed with essential vitamins and antioxidants – such as vitamins, minerals and antioxidants – making them healthier and more flavorful than processed low-calorie packaged snacks that contain fillers that mask their true flavors.
Whole Grains
Grain products provide essential nutrition such as fiber, B vitamins and essential minerals such as iron, magnesium, selenium, folate and phytochemicals. When possible opt for whole grain options and read nutrition labels to make sure you’re consuming enough of each kind of grain product.
Studies demonstrate the positive association between eating whole grains and reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD), and their phytochemical constituents, which reduce chronic cellular inflammation. Chronic inflammation is at the core of numerous health conditions including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.
Meat Alternatives
Meat alternatives offer an ideal way for individuals looking to reduce their meat consumption without compromising flavor or essential nutrients. Most such products are produced from protein extracted from plants like wheat, peas or soy; however, there are wholefood solutions such as jackfruit that may also be available.
Meat analogues tend to be processed and contain higher salt concentrations than meat products, yet contain less saturated fat, more fibre, and fewer calories. With companies vying for consumer dollars in this fast-expanding industry, this rapid expansion can have unintended consequences such as driving more people towards ultra-processed plant-based foods in their diets who already follow a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.
