The Best Diet: Explained by a Registered Dietitian

How to eat the best diet

Are you confused about what the best diet is? Don’t worry, you are not alone! We are constantly bombarded with information about what we should and should not eat. As a Registered Nutritionist, I often meet people who are “stressing and guessing” about their diet and I help them to learn the facts about food. The truth is that the best diet is very simple, we should eat whole foods and avoid processed foods (for the most part).

eat whole foods

Whole foods are foods that have not been altered. Simply put, whole foods are just regular food. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, pulses, whole grains, fish, poultry, meat. Good old-fashioned food.

Whole foods are nutrient-dense, meaning that they pack the essential nutrients that we need within them. Consider the amount of nutrients in milk vs pop and you get the picture. These foods also contain phytochemicals and zoochemicals - nature-made compounds that have far-reaching health benefits. Furthermore, whole foods have higher bioaccessibility as the food matrix, the structure of the food, affects how nutrients are released. Whole foods are pretty cool hey?!

eat minimally processed whole foods

If you want to get technical, as soon as we start grinding, chopping, cooking, freezing, or canning food we are “processing” it. These simple methods are key to the human diet, in other words, we figured out how to make food easier to digest, taste better, and store for longer. Don’t worry, this kind of old-fashioned processing is a-okay!

Frozen, canned, or dried fruits and vegetables are just as healthy as fresh. I usually get a lot of doubt when I tell people this but trust me it’s true! Produce that is frozen after picking can contain more nutrients than fresh produce that has to travel to the market. Canned Tuna, Mackerel, and Salmon are other examples of superior “processed” foods as the largest fish are canned which have the most fat - the essential fatty acids that we are lacking in our diet. There are more examples of very healthy, minimally processed food, and you only have to think back to your ancestors and consider how foods were processed to your advantage.

If you want to read more on this, check out Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham (warning - it’s a hard read as this was his PHD). You can also listen to him break down the importance of cooking foods this in this short U-tube video. I could do a whole blog on how important and underappreciated this science is but that’s for another day…

minimize ultra-processed foods

You see, the real problem with our diet today is that we started messing around with food. Since the early 1900’s processed foods have drasticly changed the human diet. Cheap, convenient, shelf-stable, and highly palatable, ultra-processed foods now make up almost 50% of the calories Canadians consume according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

You can spot these foods as they contain long lists of ingredients that you cannot find at the grocery store and are often difficult to even pronounce. These, my friends, are the foods that you want to avoid. Vitamins, minerals, and key nutrients are lost during processing leaving you with “empty calories.” Food additives are used and although they are safe to eat, they are increasingly recognized for negative health effects. Moreover, these foods lead to weight gain as our bodies do not have to work hard to digest them. They are essentially really good for putting on weight….. I can see why they don’t advertise this!

Can we quit eating ultra-processed foods? Probably not. There are many advantages to these foods and many reasons for eating them that are all valid. Never feel bad about eating food, we were born to eat and should always be thankful for what we have. But, now that you know a bit more you can start reading ingredient lists and making choices towards eating your best diet.

Oh… and if you really want to read up on some of these ingredients the International Food Additives Council has a list here.

stay calm and keep eating

Forget about counting calories, count whole foods! It’s not about eating less, it’s about eating more of the foods that nourish us. Especially those plant foods that are loaded with essential micronutrients and phytonutrients.

Eat unlimited vegetables and fruits (yes unlimited), have nuts every day, eat beans and lentils as often as possible, eat fatty fish at least twice a week and go ahead and have lean dairy, meat, poultry and eggs.

See I told you it was simple!