KTK-Nutrition

Eating healthy isn’t hard, one just had to reduce the amount of processed food and focus more on fruits, vegetables and whole grains.   But what is processed food?   The Berkeley Wellness Letter (January 2016) outlined the various levels of “processed”.   Usually, the less processed the food, the better for your health.   Foods can range from highly processed to minimally processed.   Some processing is actually healthy for you.   For example, pasteurized milk is processed to kill the harmful bacteria so this is a good form of “processed” food.   Highly Processed Foods – For many of us, highly processed foods comprise up to 63% of our calories.   That is too much processed foods.   These are foods so full of processed ingredients they are no longer recognizable as being from a plant or animal source.   Some examples:                 Hot dogs, margarine, most ...

Everyone says to “eat healthy” but many people aren’t quite sure what this means.   To some it means Pop Tarts and Sunny D as these foods are “fortified” with vitamins.   But they are not really healthy foods as they are full of sugar, white flour and few nutrients.   Eating healthy means including nutrient dense foods in your daily diet.   Not exclusively, as we all like our treats.    But our meals and many of our snacks should be focused on nutrient dense foods.    The January 2015 edition of Environmental Health had an excellent article, Make your Diet More Nutrient-Dense.   The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics refers to these foods as nutrient-rich foods. What are nutrient-rich or nutrient-dense foods?   These foods contain the most nutrients per calorie.   Usually they are the least processed foods and foods not diluted with a lot of added sugar or added fat. What foods are considered nutrient-rich? Whole gra...