Nutrient dense eating is a fantastic approach to eating. In addition, it’s a great way to ensure that your body is getting a variety of vitamins, minerals and other bioactive substances to keep everything running smoothly. Here are a few key benefits of nutrient dense eating.
Nutrients
The main benefit of nutrient dense eating is, well, the nutrients. This is the whole point of following this type of eating pattern. By prioritizing nutrient dense food, you are feeding your body the wide variety of nutrients it needs to function. If you haven’t noticed, the body is a pretty amazing thing. There are thousands of chemical reactions that happen each second of the day to help us function and thrive. These chemical reactions depend on vitamins and minerals to happen. And most of these substrates come from food.
So if you are not eating enough nutrients, your body is forced to prioritize the reactions it needs for survival. Over time, this can cause breakdowns and shortfalls in our organ systems. Eventually it will cause problems and may lead to the development of chronic diseases.
When you focus on eating nutrients, it helps to prevent these breakdowns from happening. Undernutrition is a huge problem in our world today. Even in industrialized countries, people are not consuming adequate vitamins and minerals. Our standard diets today are completely void of so many important and vital nutrients. Shifting the focus away from calories more towards nutrient density will go a long way in supporting our overall health and preventing chronic diseases in the future.
Antioxidants
Eating a nutrient dense diet also increases the amount and variety of antioxidants in our diet. Antioxidants are the key inflammation fighters that we find in most plant based foods. There are thousands of antioxidant compounds and research has shown that the more dietary antioxidants we consume, the less risk there is of developing inflammatory diseases.
Making more nutrient dense choices usually means that the foods you are choosing less processed foods and mostly plant based (unless you are following the carnivore diet). And, because most people get tired of eating the same thing, you are also probably eating more variety.
Variety is key here. Different plants have different antioxidants in them. Different colors also have different phytochemicals too. So the more variety of plants, the more antioxidants you are eating, and the easier it will be for your body to fight inflammation.
Additionally, this is also going to help you with your autoimmune disease, because we all know how inflammation makes things worse.
Gut Health
One of the best benefits of nutrient dense eating is gut health. Eating foods chock full of vitamins and minerals is fantastic for your gut. Research has shown time and time again that nutrient dense foods, full of fiber, vitamins and minerals support and feed our gut microbiome. The more variety you eat, the happier your gut microbiome will be.
And why is this important? 70% of your immune cells live in your gut. By eating foods that support and nourish your gut, you are supporting those immune cells. Therefore, when you support and give love to your immune cells, your health will benefit tremendously.
Balance
Lastly, the great thing about nutrient density eating is it provides balance. It’s much easier to be intuitive with your eating when you have nutrient density on the brain. And, it gives you more freedom because you’re not so concerned about hitting certain macros, or counting calories. Also, remember that nutrient density is not the same as clean eating. It’s making the choice to choose the more nutrient dense food.
So if you want ice cream, pick the one that has more nutrients. If you want chocolate, pick darker over milk. If you want fast food, pick the option that has more vegetables and/or plants. All foods are not the same, and you don’t have to be perfect all of the time.
Nutrient dense eating is a great way to approach healthy and balanced eating. If you need more help changing your eating habits, please contact me to discuss. In addition, for more information about food, inflammation and autoimmune diseases, follow me on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
