There is a lot of advice available online about what types of foods to eat and how much of each type of food you should be eating. Sprinkled in amongst this advice are terms that you might not be familiar with. One such term you might see appearing – especially as we move into cooler weather – is ‘nutrient dense’ foods. It’s a term that sounds great, who wouldn’t want to eat food that is ‘nutrient dense’? But what does it mean?
From a Ballarat homeopath’s perspective, let us learn why should we eat nutrient-dense foods. Just continue reading below.
A typical diet often contains a lot of ‘empty calories’. That means it has a lot of foods that have a lot of calories but not a lot of nutrients. It provides a lot of energy without providing other things that are important for health.
Nutrient Density
Nutrient-dense foods are almost the opposite. They provide energy too but are also high in nutrients, providing your body with the vitamins and minerals necessary for good health. Nutrient-dense foods are usually natural foods such as fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, fish, seafood, meat, and poultry.
Nutrient density is all about how many nutrients you get from the food for the number of calories it contains. Have a chat with a Ballarat homeopath to learn more about this.
Balanced Eating with Nutrient-Dense Foods
As with all things in life, the most important thing to keep in mind about what you eat is the balance. If you are eating ‘nutrient dense’ foods, you help make sure that your body has access to the nutrients it needs.
This doesn’t mean that eating foods that aren’t nutrient dense is the end of the world. What it does mean is that it’s important to keep in mind what you are eating. If you haven’t eaten many foods that have a high nutritional content recently, see if you can’t change that.
Healthy Changes
It can be tricky not to default, grabbing whatever is in the cupboard for a snack. Especially if you’ve grown up always with something like a packet of chips always available. The idea is to be aware, to make health-conscious choices where you can.
Give yourself time to work up to have a nutrient dense diet. Here are some simple changes you can start to implement in your life:
- Swap white rice for brown rice.
- Try grabbing a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts instead of a bag of chips.
- If you have a craving for sweets, try a piece of fruit rather than chocolate or cookies.
- Try plain Greek yoghurt rather than flavoured yoghurt.
- When choosing toppings, try vegetables rather than meat or cheese.
The biggest changes will come when you look at the patterns you have around eating rather than trying to eliminate a particular snack or type of food.
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