Maximize your Health: Be a Nutrivore

Way back when, I loved the opportunity to go out for a nice “corporate lunch.” Because my office was located in a quiet suburb of Manhattan, we had a selection of good restaurants - fast food wasn’t even in sight.

I remember one of my colleagues would ALWAYS order a salad. I would look at her and think - how can you order a salad when there are so many interesting items on the menu?! Just plain boring and uninspiring in my view.

Back at the office, sometimes I would follow her through the salad bar line in the cafeteria. I must admit, her salads looked far more appealing than mine.

My expectation of a salad was all of the usual - maybe a few scallions, lettuce, cukes and tomatoes. Maybe adding some feta and olives was really going big.

I’d glance at her salad bowl … and it just looked more interesting than mine. There was always a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

Maybe a hard boiled egg, or some blueberries, or sunflower seeds. Roasted beets, a few peppers, and marinated artichoke hearts. All mixed in together.

It just looked artful. Colorful. Full of variety. And delicious.

Guess what this friend was teaching me so many years ago?

How to be a nutrivore - a sure way to maximize our health.

The term “nutrivore” is a term coined by Dr. Sarah Ballentyne and essentially means seeking out a wide variety of whole foods to deliver maximized nutrition.

We maximize the variety of nutrients we get from our food when we maximize the number of different things we eat. Seeking out all sorts of colors of vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds is the name of the game.

Even diversifying within the same category of food provides different nutrients.

An orange carrot gives you different nutrients than a purple carrot.

A Granny Smith apple gives you different nutrients than a Red Delicious apple.

A yellow beet gives you different nutrients than a red beet.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil from California gives you different nutrients than Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Italy…

And so on.

Research conducted by The American Gut Project (ongoing world-wide research to better understand the human microbiome, such as the types of bacteria that live in our gut and how they are influenced by diet and lifestyle) found that eating a baseline variety of 30 plants every week provided a beneficial level of gut diversity.

Given that our gut houses a whopping 70% of our immune system, having a diverse mix of gut microbes is integral to good health.

So if we embrace this idea of being a “nutrivore” … what benefits does that deliver?

• Maybe most importantly - it builds a robust immune system. It reinforces our body's defense systems - giving us the ammunition to fight off illness, whether that is the common cold or flu or something more serious.
  
  

• It reduces inflammation, and benefits our cognitive health. Even puts us in a better mood.
  
  

• It helps protect us from environmental toxins. Unfortunately sometimes it’s almost impossible to avoid consuming toxins in our food, as a result of the proliferation of pesticide use in farming (this is why buying organic is so important). The predominance of plastic packaging can add more toxins to the plate.
  
  If we eat a variety of foods, we’re not taking in the same thing over and over again which can compound in the body. So variety helps spread out or minimize exposure to any one thing.

So moving forward, what are the best strategies for adopting a nutrivore mindset?

One strategy is to mix up your routine … or maybe I should say break your routine.

While routines serve us in so many ways, routines in eating (i.e. having that same breakfast every morning) minimizes our nutrient status. If you’re currently in a routine, think about how to mix things up.

Another strategy is to stock your pantry and your fridge with “go to” items that you can use in many ways.

I try to always have a variety of nuts on hand, and have mason jars of hemp, sunflower, pumpkin, chia and flax seeds in my pantry or fridge. They are all nutrient powerhouses - and easy to throw into a smoothie or on top of a salad, or just snack on.

I typically have fermented vegetables in the fridge (like pickled purple cabbage, beets or regular sauerkraut and olives (our gut loves fermented foods), a variety of greens, a few cruciferous vegetables too. Other items like organic hummus, peanut or almond butter, maybe a pesto or a romesco sauce also provide more dimensions for creating interesting flavor combinations.

Adopt an experimental frame of mind. Try new things. Get creative with the way you put your plate of food together. Put different things in your salad … on your eggs or in your smoothie every time you make it.

And always remember your colors. Eat the rainbow. Phytonutrients produce pigments of different colors. Seek out all the colors when eating - red, green, yellow, orange, purple, white.

So does hitting that 30 mark seem like a big challenge?

Maybe initially, but read on.

Recently I went into the kitchen to make lunch … having no idea what that might be as I hadn’t been shopping in a while and was running low on a lot of stuff. I really didn’t feel like I had much to work with.

Since there was no protein in the fridge, I decided to open up a can of wild tuna, added a little of my homemade mayo, celery, salt and pepper, and some pickled jalapenos.

I drizzled some olive oil in my bowl, squeezed in some lemon juice, threw in a handful of arugula, added the tuna, put some red pickled cabbage on top of that, then sprinkled on oregano, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and hemp seeds.

I poured a glass of cold green tea which I had brewed a couple days ago.

I was almost surprised by how delicious it was.

And since I had my “nutrivore” hat on - I was able to eat 16 different plants. Just in one meal, I was more than halfway to that beneficial level of 30 different plant based foods we should seek out at a minimum on a weekly basis.

Doesn’t that make you think about how many different plant foods you could take in over the course of the week to boost your overall nutrient status?

So how about a challenge for this week:

Track the variety of different plant foods you eat.

The goal is to hit 30 … but the more the better.

How high can you go? Find a notepad or piece of paper that is in your kitchen or that you can take along with you, and track what you’re eating.

Every different vegetable, fruit, herb, nut, seed, whole grain, legume counts.

Green & herbal teas and coffee count.

Spices count. Put oregano in your dressing. Sprinkle rosemary on your food. Put cinnamon in your coffee. Add turmeric to your rice.

But remember, you can only count the SAME ingredient once, even if you have it several times within the week.

I hope you find that experimenting with different types of plant based foods and adding layers of flavor to your meal will help you create some delicious and healthy new options to consider for yourself and put you well on your way to being a nutrivore.

Let me know where you end up. Share your experiences and your discoveries.

I will carefully track this too. Curious to see how high we can all go.

Remember maximizing our health is all about the tiny steps we can take each and every day. Each of those steps will move us along the wellness continuum, fortifying our foundation to create optimized health in the long term.