Eating the best nutritious foods is a major problem in the world, and especially United States. As the reader is aware by now, selecting the wrong foods can result in many chronic diseases, especially obesity. This article provides information how you can do a better job of selecting foods that promote optimal wellbeing and prevent chronic diseases.

Many persons are aware of the need to select a good diet but refrain from doing so because they have become addicted to foods like sweets, snacks and processed foods. They find it very difficult to switch to non-addictive foods. Nevertheless, this is not a good excuse for eating foods that are full of calories but few quality nutrients.

What is nutrient-density?

Nutrient density means how many nutrients you get from a food, given the number of calories it contains. Nutrient density connects nutrients to calories. Nutrition experts focus on the number of calories that are linked to a 2000 calorie diet and not about the number of nutrients in the diet. Making matters worse, many weight loss experts use the adage "you need to lose 3500 calories to lose one pound of body fat;" overlooking the more important information about the number of nutrients one ingests or nutrient-density.

Nutrient density is a concept pioneered by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, and is simply the measurement of the concentration of micronutrients in food. Some foods, like green vegetables have very high nutrient density measurements. Processed foods have very low nutrient density measurements. Foods that are nutrient dense are associated with greater health, increased energy and weight loss.

Adequate consumption of foods high in vitamins, minerals, amino acids and phytochemicals is essential for a healthy immune system and to empower your body’s detoxification and cellular repair mechanisms to protect you from cancer and other diseases. Fuhrman: Nutrient density 2016 Fuhrman points out that:

If you need to lose weight, you will find that the more nutrient dense food you consume, the more you will be satisfied with fewer calories and the less you’ll crave low-nutrient, empty calorie [junk] foods. You need to make wiser food choices as well as lifestyle changes. You will also keep the weight off as this is an eating plan for life that you will come to appreciate and love.

How do you know which foods to choose? To answer this question, Dr. Fuhrman in 2017 created the first version of Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, or ANDI, that rated foods on a scale of 1-1000. 1000 is super good while 1 is terrible. Fuhrman updated this early ANDI version with his 2020 version that is based on portion sizes of foods eaten rather than calories; making it easier to track the quality of foods eaten. The updated 2020 version of ANDi has scores ranging from 100 [very good] to zero ]bad].

The ANDI ranks many common foods on the basis of how many nutrients they deliver to your body for each calorie consumed. It also helps you visualize how nutrient dense green vegetables, fruits are and how foods compare with one another.

Food labels list only a few nutrients [e.g. 24 or fewer nutrients], but ANDI’s are based on thirty-four important nutritional parameters. The ANDI is a simple way to help you identify and eat larger amounts of nutrient-rich foods. The higher the ANDI and the greater percentage of those foods in your diet, the better your health will be.

Not surprisingly, the foods that have a high ANDI score are straight from nature, primarily vegetables and fruits. Nutritional science in the last twenty years has demonstrated that colorful plant foods contain a huge assortment of protective compounds. Only by eating an assortment of these nutrient-rich natural foods can we access these protective compounds and prevent the common diseases that afflict Americans.

To see how well the foods you eat rate, take a look at this sample of ANDI scores in the table below: Fuhrman: ANDI scores for foods 2020

Though the ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) is not the only thing that one needs to consider, attention should be given to consuming a variety of high ANDI scoring plant foods, to maximize the total ANDI score for a meal or a day's diet. Dr. Fuhrman specifically recommends that people consume greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, seeds and tomatoes on a regular basis to maximize immune function and protection against cancer. Finally, ANDI does not give good points for Flax seeds that are a super source of antioxidants and fiber. Fuhrman's ANDI gives little attention to avocados that contain a superb amounts of nutrients.

The ANDI score for a food also overlooks the nutrients in lesser amounts, referred to as helpers or co-factors and food enzymes, that may be in very small amounts but essential for all the other major nutrients to work in that food.

Finally, nutrient-density helps us to select foods that have the highest amount of vitamins, minerals and amino acids. Here is a sample of foods that may be selected for a vegetarian meal [ Food data analysis in table below from  USDA: Nutrient analysis in foods ]:

Nutrient Source: Food Data Central US Dept of Agriculture:   USDA: Food Data Central

Fuhrman's 2017 ANDI table did not give values for onions, Brewer's yeast and beets. Beets provide nitrous oxides facilitating methylation that is a most essential for body functioning. Brewer's yeast supplies amino acids that may be missing in a vegetarian diet. Another important missing nutrient are plant enzymes and co-factors.

Numerous hi-density foods may be substituted for those in the table above; for example, collards, spinach and romaine lettuce for kale and other fruit for apple. This meal, if repeated over time, and avoiding sugar, fats and processed foods, will make you feel good, not feeling hungry, have minimum flatulence and a soft bowel movement.

Although Dr. Fuhrman's ANDI table is the best short food guide for selecting foods to eat, one should not rely on it as a final word about a nutrient dense diet. The reason is that fresh raw vegetables and fruits may not be readily available where many live, like in a desert where food is not grown due to lack of water.  One should consider ingesting plant based supplements and getting adequate amount of exposure to sunlight. But avoid supplements that are chemically engineered, as these are recognized as toxins by the body. Sorochan: Vitamin-mineral supplements 2019

An interesting observation about selecting foods is the theory of nutrient deficiency. A diet deficient in nutrients causes the pleasure-feeling center in the brain to feel hungry. A diet lacking nutrients tells the brain that it needs to eat more foods that have nutrients. Such a person craves to eat, usually foods that have very few nutrients .... contributing to excessive empty calorie foods that contribute to a silent incubation of obesity. According to Dr. Fuhrman, if you can't stick to a diet, you cannot achieve permanent weight loss and health. If a diet does not provide the nutrients you need, then your body will want more food and it will be nearly impossible to maintain a proper weight. This is the key to permanent 'weight loss' and it can be made part of any diet strategy.  Fuhrman: Nutrient density 2016

Conclusion:

Whole, organically-grown foods are more nutritious than junk or processed foods. The reason is simple: nothing is contained in a fresh, whole organic food that doesn't need to be there. Plant foods contain all the nutrients, co-factors and enzymes needed for the plants to grow and be digested by humans.

Although nutrient-density is the best approach to understanding how to eat better, there are numerous flaws if one just relies on this eating approach:

1. The flaw in recommended diets and especially nutrient analyses is that they only take into consideration at most 40 minerals, vitamins and amino acids that the human body needs; while leaving out a vast majority of nutrients, co-factorial nutrients and essential plant enzymes. James A. Duke, James, PhD, reported in several of his books in 1992, that there are over 3000 phytochemicals, that can be considered as nutrients. This information has been ignored by nutritionists and others as food sources.  Duke: Plants 1992

2. Nutritionists, when doing a diet analysis, assume that there are only 40 nutrients that the human body needs. This assumption is rejected by Dr. Roland Thomas, head of Bioage [Spirulina SuperFood], claiming to include at least 90 nutrients in the supplement spirulina SuperFood. Thomas: Superfood - Genius within  SuperFood number of nutrients are based on mother nature spirulina [sea weed] creating its own survival food that, in turn, has become part of the human-food DNA.

3. Nutrition experts create confusion by linking food and nutrients to calories and implying that we count calories instead of focusing on the number of nutrients in a food. The best recent approach to all the nutrition confusion is the approach taken by a medical nutrition doctor, Dr. Joel Fuhrman.

4. Missing from Fuhrman's nutrient-dense diet ANDI considerations are the sun's energy waves, photons, as the key to plant food freshness. Also missing are exosomes that have RDA information about good and bad foods that the human body is programmed to decipher and interpret. Both of these are overlooked in nutrient-density.

So how does the human body [ not diet analysis or medical doctors] interpret whether it is getting an adequate amount of nutrients? The human body automatically diagnoses whether there are sufficient nutrients in the food one eats. When one eats insufficient nutrients, then it sends response messages like flatulence, bloating, constipation and especially feeling hungry in spite of having just eaten.

Jackie Wicks and others argue that diets have failed you and not the other way around. It is fashionable to say that "diets don't work."  Article by Wicks: Nutrient density & weight loss is no longer active. Scientists now believe that many people feel hungry because their body is not getting the nutrients it needs. Kendall:What is nutrient density although we need more research on this issue.

The poor diet and lifestyle choices of our youth start to catch up with us as we age. But the good news is that embracing a healthful lifestyle, including a nutrient-dense, plant-rich diet, can allow us to maintain optimal health and achieve enhanced longevity.

"In the United States, as in other countries, too much of the food that is consumed has almost no nutritional value. I [Dr. Fuhrman] am talking about highly processed foods that are often referred to as “empty calories” because they are so low in micronutrients. These are products, not whole foods. Eating commercially baked goods, snack foods, luncheon meats, ice cream, soda, and oils, are altered foods and these are dangerous. They are usually made with sweeteners, white flour or loaded with sodium, sugar and fat [that make us addicted]. Our addictions to these high-calorie, low-nutrient foods have led to astronomically high rates of obesity, cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes."  Fuhrman: Nutrient density 2016

Whole organically-grown foods are mother nature packaged in its lowest calorie form. Scientists have now confirmed that eating fresh raw vegetables, fruits and nuts is a very healthy diet that avoids red meats, junk and processed foods.

We need to dream of eating better. We are on the verge of new innovative ways of farming food. The missing and essential link in the nutrient-dense diet is getting raw, fresh vegetables and eating these the same day so as to preserve the photon energy and exosomes. Innovators in the past 10 years have been evolving new ways of growing plants and getting these to the plate fresh and raw. There are several innovative approaches to traditional land-soil farming, like aquafarming, aerofarming, and vertical farming. All of these innovations to producing food are trying to get food from the growing stage to the table faster than traditional farming that requires storage and transportation .... resulting in loss of vegetable freshness. Building a small vertical enclosed farm inside a food supermarket would be such a dream example. We should expect more and better innovations in the future.

Vertical farms produce crops in stacked layers, often in controlled environments such as those built by AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey. AeroFarms grows a variety of leafy salad greens entirely indoors using a process called "aeroponics," which relies on air and mist. Unfortunately, such farming still requires storage and transportation. But this could be overcome by building such farms adjacent to supermarkets, thereby minimizing storage and transportation. Now we are dreaming of a new way of farming, economics and living.

This innovation makes vertical farming and fresh produce accessible to the public by allowing shoppers to grab fresh vegetables straight from the source. With this sustainable and environmentally friendly technology, transportation, storage and refrigeration are no longer factors in getting produce to the people. The idea of growing and harvesting vegetables indoor has spread to Paris, France, as illustrated in the photo on the right.

Meanwhile, while we hope and wait for a more applicable version of vertical farming in the supermarket, you will still need to go to the grocery store or organic farm that sells the freshest food in your area.

Dr. Bruce Ames, Emeritus Professor at University of California, Berkeley, summarizes the relevance of all this information about nutrient-density:  Article by Ames: Triage theory of nutrition and health is no longer active.  Ames: Need better clinical trails on micronutrients 2007

"A large body of evidence indicates that deficiencies in many micronutrients cause DNA damage, such as chromosome breaks. Some of these micronutrient deficiencies also cause mitochondrial decay with oxidant leakage and cellular aging and are associated with late-onset diseases such as cancer. Ames also introduced a theory that provides a rationale for why micronutrient deficiencies may lead to greater risk of chronic diseases such as cancer."

 He proposed that DNA damage and late-onset diseases are consequences of a “triage allocation response” to micronutrient scarcity. Episodic shortages of micronutrients were common during evolution. Because natural selection favors short-term survival at the expense of long-term health, Ames hypothesized that short-term survival was achieved by allocating scarce micronutrients by triage, in part through an adjustment of the binding affinity of proteins for required micronutrients. The hypothesis is testable, and, if correct, it predicts that micronutrient deficiencies triggering the triage allocation response would accelerate cancer, aging, and neural decay but would leave critical short-term metabolic functions, such as ATP production, intact. 

Dr. Ames’s Triage Theory of optimal nutrition states that the human body prioritizes the use of vitamins and minerals when it is getting an insufficient amount to keep functioning:  Smith: Dr. Bruce Ames on nutrition

"The term “triage” is borrowed from the field of urgent medical care. Triage means deciding which patients to treat when faced with limited resources. When presented with more sick patients than there are resources to treat them all at the same time, doctors must decide which patients to treat first based on the severity of their condition.

So the patient in cardiac arrest comes first, followed by the patient with a hemorrhaging wound in need of stitches, then the patient with severe influenza, and so on. This provides the best chance for all the patients to survive.

Our bodies evolved to do pretty much the same thing. Faced with limited nutritional resources, the human physiology must “decide” which biological functions to prioritize in order to give the total organism—and the species—the best chance to survive and reproduce."

Finally, Dr. Ames has touched on the subject of how our bodies work with nutrition. But there are many more ways that our body works in silence. Sorochan: How body works 2019

The human body is in a survival mode all the time. It slides from a well state to incubating a disorder or disease and visa versa while attempting to stabilize the body systems with no present signs or symptoms of mineral or vitamin imbalance and no visible signs of disorder or disease. Most persons vacillate at this survival level, probably harboring at least one body health problem, often incubate a second disorder and not be aware of it. A person may go through her/his entire life nutritionally deficient or unbalanced and not know it while socializing, enjoying physical, mental and emotional activities. During this seemingly well time, depending on the severity or lack of nutritional balance, one may never become severely ill, while incubating diseases [ cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes] and the body balancing these out with overall low level survival wellness. It is safe to say that if there are no visible signs of disease, that most persons and medical doctors would assume such a person to be healthy.  However, in real life, the body of a person appearing to be in good health and functioning may not necessarily be well, the degree of wellbeing is compensated, hidden and medically undiagnosed. The significance of this information is that the human body needs nutrients [ good food] to prevent hatching diseases silently and survive. How the body works is essential motivation to eating better, losing body weight, avoiding chronic diseases, dealing with auto-immune disorders, helping bones to heal and just staying healthy.

So .... now you, the reader, should have some information and understanding how the body prioritizes food intake. And how additives in  foods, like sugar, fat and salt can make you addicted to crave to eat more addictive junk foods. But the final step is acting on all this information. You need to act on it. If you have a chronic condition like being overweight or obese, then you need to change how you shop for food, how you select foods and how you eat. You need discipline! discipline! discipline! and a desire to be better! It is your decision about acting in this information.