The WHFoods Menu is a menu designed to help guide you to a healthier way of eating with nutrient-rich World's Healthiest Foods and great tasting recipes which provide 100% of the WHFoods' nutrient recommendations. Yes, you heard that correctly— 100% of all nutrient recommendations at WHFoods with recipes so easy that anyone can make them! And none of which take longer than 15 minutes to prepare. You get all of these benefits without reliance on dietary supplements or processed ingredients.
After teaming up and analyzing the role of diet in our national health status, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) concluded in a landmark 2015 report that the way we eat in the U.S. constitutes a major health concern. We get far too little of certain nutrients that we need, and far too many of certain nutrients that we don't. As a result, 96% of the people have levels of nutrient deficiency, which can increase our risk of many commonly experienced chronic diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, certain cancers, osteoporosis, stroke, and others. Poor food choices and malnutrition are seldom the single-handed cause of any chronic disease. But they very frequently raise our risk! And changing the way we eat can help move things back in the opposite direction, away from chronic disease. As a very general conclusion based on a large number of research studies, healthier eating has been shown to lower our risk of many chronic diseases in the range of 10-30%. (In a case like obesity, of course, this percentage is much higher.)
There are also many circumstances in which we might not be able to completely avoid a chronic health problem, but this problem can be much more manageable and less intrusive in our everyday lives through healthier eating. Inflammation-related health problems are a great example in this area, since a wide range of dietary factors can influence the level of inflammation in our body systems and, depending on the specific set of circumstances, intake of nutrients like flavonoids can significantly lessen the degree of inflammation.
If you compare average dietary intake in the U.S. to our WHFoods nutrient recommendations, you will find current U.S. intake falling short of the mark in about half of all nutrient areas! These areas of nutrient deficiency include vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, fiber, folate, choline, iron, magnesium, and potassium. And while average U.S. intake meets our WHFoods nutrient recommendations in many other nutrient areas, it only succeeds in meeting our recommendations by going overboard in other areas. For example, average dietary intake in the U.S. easily meets (and actually exceeds) our recommendations for vitamin B12 and protein - but only at the expense of too much saturated fat and calories, often stemming from overconsumption of low-quality and/or processed foods. We keep the calories in our WHFoods Menu to about 1,800. The U.S. average is closer to 2,100, or about 16% higher. We also keep the saturated fat in our WHFoods Menu on the low side, to about 18 grams. The U.S. average is about one and a half times that at 25.5 grams. So not only are there key nutrient deficiencies in our U.S. way of eating, but also key excesses. Our WHFoods Menu corrects both problems!
We live in a time when smoothies, protein bars, protein powders, dietary supplements, and other nutrition-related products have become prominent not only in marketplace ads but in many of our meal plans. And yet no matter how concentrated these products might be in certain nutrients, they cannot reproduce the diversity of nutrients, the variety of nutrient forms, or the complexity of nutrient interrelationships found in whole foods. Research studies repeatedly show that every food has its own unique combination of nutrients, and that no processed version can create an exact replica of the real thing. Whether it is the unique lignan composition of cucumbers (including lariciresinol, pinoresinol, and secoisolariciresinol) or the 45 different flavonoids that scientists have identified in kale - real foods provide unique nutrient combinations that cannot be found anywhere else.
The WHFoods Menu provides you with nourishment through a reliance on nutrient-rich foods. By "nutrient-rich," what we mean is concentrated in nutrients and costing as little as possible in terms of calories. Any of us could get 100% of many key nutrients from processed foods if we ate these processed foods in great excess. We would get the necessary nutrients, but we would also get too many calories and too many fats and we would end up overeating in a way that took a major toll on our body systems. Nutrient-rich foods, like the World's Healthiest Foods, give us the nutrients we need without causing us to overeat in any way. They give us the good without the bad!
Nutrient-rich foods are also custom-tailored to our body systems - including our digestive tract. When chewed properly at a relaxed sit-down meal, our WHFoods can be expected to follow a natural course of digestion and provide the kind of nourishment that we would expect from whole, minimally-processed foods. And our nutrient-rich way of cooking at home can be expected to enhance this outcome. Nutrient-rich foods improve our health not only by lowering our risk of chronic diseases, but also by providing direct support to our many different cell types and complicated physiology. There isn't a single cell in our body (and we have trillions and trillion of individual cells) that doesn't rely on nutrient intake from the food we eat. And there isn't a single system in our body (including our muscles, our bones, our nerves and brain, or our circulatory system) that doesn't require dietary nutrients. So it is by no means a stretch to say that nutrient-rich foods improve our health in more ways than we can count!
Our vision for the future is to optimize health through the selection of nutrient-rich health-promoting foods, such as the World's Healthiest Foods, and preparing them the Nutrient-Rich Way to retain their nutritional value. We envision a future based upon enjoyment of whole foods such as those found in the WHFoods Menu - foods that are devoid of added sugars, added salt, processed fats, and other unwanted additives. We envision a future of vibrant health and vitality that is brought about through wise food choices that will maximize our nutritional intake in the context of enjoyable, everyday meals. We envision a world where 96% of the people are no longer nutrient deficient because of the nourishment the World's Healthiest Foods provides!
4-Minute Broccoli with Feta Cheese and Kalamata Olives
WHFoods Menu Shopping List and Pantry Items WHFoods Menu— Shopping List and List of Pantry Items
WHFoods Foods Menu: Nutrients
WHFoods Menu: A Nutrient-by-Nutrient Look