What Should You Eat?

“Black raspberries may prevent cancer of esophagus.”
“Blueberries may help old folks keep their smarts.”
“Green tea may reduce prostate cancer risk.”

These are a few of the many news headlines I’ve recently read while tracking the latest nutrition research. Any number of foods or their nutritional ingredients are regularly touted as superfoods, functional foods, or nutraceuticals. Unfortunately, such headlines are often misleading.

You’re not going to significantly reduce your risk of disease or achieve optimal health by eating a bowl of black raspberries every day. They’ll certainly taste great and will provide some health benefits, of course. But good health doesn’t result from eating a single food – it comes from healthy eating habits.

In other words, think in terms of the forest, not trees, nutritionally speaking.

Eating a healthy diet isn’t all that mysterious. If you follow two simple rules, you’ll be on the right track most of the time.

First, eat mostly fresh foods instead of processed and packaged foods. Fresh foods look something like they do in nature. For example, a salmon filet looks like part of a fish, which a fish stick does not. As a general rule, fresh foods received less tampering compared with processed foods. Most processed foods have added sugars, refined carbs, sodium, or unhealthy fats – or all of them – adding up to high-calorie nonnutrients.

Second, eat a diverse selection of foods, including quality protein, healthy fats, and a lot of vegetables. A diversity of foods translates into a bounty of nutrients, many of which have not been extensively studied and as a result don’t garner a lot of headlines. For example, a recent study reported that curcumin, the active compound in the spice turmeric, blocked inflammation through 97 distinct mechanisms. That’s just one spice, out of hundreds of options to choose from at your local market.