Eating highly nutritious foods enables you to fulfill your nutritional requirements for calories, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. The USDA Dietary Guidelines emphasizes you eat and drink nutrient-dense foods and beverages, and avoid processed and fast foods that often contain lower amounts of micronutrients and high amounts of sodium and calories from solid fats, refined grains and added sugars. Eating highly nutritious foods for a week requires good planning.
Fruits and Vegetables
Plan the types of fruits and vegetables to eat at the beginning of the week. Fruits and vegetables are nutrient-dense foods that contain high concentrations of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fiber. Add a colorful array of different fruits and vegetables to each meal during the week to obtain a wide distribution of micronutrients and fiber. The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention recommends you eat generous amounts of a variety of colors of fruits and vegetables daily. People who eat generous amounts of fruits and vegetables as part of a healthy diet are less likely to develop chronic diseases, such as cancer and stroke, compared to people who eat small amounts of these foods.
Foods With Healthy Fats
A highly nutritious diet includes foods with healthy fats, nutrients that improve your cholesterol levels, stabilize heart rhythms and reduce inflammation of cells and tissues. Healthy fats are liquids at room temperature and include monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Foods with healthy fats are predominantly plant-based and include nuts, seeds and vegetable oils. Cold water fatty fish, such as salmon, tuna, herring and sardines are a rich source of long chain omega-3 fatty acids. The American Heart Association recommends you eat at least two servings of 3.5 oz. of fatty fish during the week to improve cardiovascular health. Eat seeds, nuts, olive oil or vegetable oil on the days of the week you do not eat fish to obtain healthy fats.
Whole Grains
Plan to eat a whole grain at each meal during the week. Whole grains are nutrient-dense foods that provide carbohydrates, unsaturated fats, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Whole-grain cereals are highly nutritious breakfast foods that provide you with energy to start each day. Make sandwiches with whole grain breads and include other highly nutritious whole-grain foods, such as brown rice, barley, whole wheat, quinoa or other whole grains in your dinner meals. Eating whole grains lowers blood levels of total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol , the "bad" cholesterol, triglycerides and insulin.
Legumes
Include a different legume each day of the week, such as tofu, tempeh, black beans, lima beans, chickpeas, lentils and split peas as a main dish, side dish or an ingredient in soups or salads. Legumes are highly nutritious and contain vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, plus soluble fiber, an indigestible substance that reduces the amount of cholesterol your body absorbs from foods and slows down absorption of sugars from foods which helps you control blood sugar levels. Soy foods contain all essential amino acids and are a good source of calcium, a mineral for healthy bones.
References
- United States Department of Agriculture; Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010; 2010
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; How Many Fruits and Vegetables Do You Need?; 2011
- Harvard School of Public Health; Fats and Cholesterol: Out with the Bad, in with the Good; 2010
- American Heart Association; Fish and Omega-3 Fatty Acids; 2010
- Harvard School of Public Health; Health Gains from Whole Grains; 2010
- MayoClinic.com; Dietary Fiber: Essential for a Healthy Diet; 2009
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