It’s people like you (if you are reading this) who inspire me to strive for eating the best I can throughout the year, whether it’s a holiday or not. People like us are not necessarily healthy nuts, we just want to eat in the healthiest and most successful way, without having to be perfect or sacrifice great taste.

Well, there is no other holiday that currently supports you in healthy eating like Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is already the most nutrient-rich holiday there is, with all the vegetables and fruits and the down-to-earth feeling you get on Thanksgiving day… where it’s all about being truly grateful for all that we have in our lives. After all, we are the luckiest people who have ever been born to date, throughout all of history, who have access to so many technologies and healthy food, sanitation and for the most part freedom from fears associated with mere survival. It’s an amazing time to be alive, particularly if you don’t get caught up with a lot of modern pitfalls.

One such pitfall, as you know, is eating nutrient-poor food, especially when it’s so simple to make the switch to nutrient-rich and get all the benefits of healthy eating, without having to be perfect or sacrifice great taste. This is a far cry from what healthy eating used to be. 

Well, Thanksgiving is a holiday already rich with nutrient-rich foods; but did you know you could actually go through this holiday and eat up to 90% or more plant nutrient rich foods, in the greatest tasting ways and wake up the next day feeling great without the ensuing cold that will befell so many people because they basically ate a heart attack on a plate and all the junk food they could to overwhelm their bodies?

In the past, Thanksgiving has been some sort of license, not only to overeat, but to also overwhelm your body with nutrient-poor foods too, like cake and pie etc, as if it is OK, just because it’s a holiday. I mean, you can eat whatever you want, but you know you can’t eat whatever, whenever and get the results you want. So if you want to have a great Thanksgiving, which may include eating more than you usually do (after all it is a feast), and feel good afterwards, then make this a nutrient-rich Thanksgiving!

Instead of eating meals heavy with calorie-rich, nutrient-poor animal products and ultra refined food stuffs, eat smaller amounts of Turkey and other animal products and discover the dozens, actually unlimited number of ways to eat plant based, nutrient rich menus.

Here’s are two nutrient-rich recipes for Thanksgiving

Porcini Mushroom Gravy.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup dried porcini mushrooms
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup mushrooms sliced (your choice)
• 3 tablespoons whole wheat flour (get 365 from whole foods)
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon Bragg Liguid Aminos
• 1 Tablespoon Dr.Fuhrman’s Vegizest
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/8 teaspoon dried sage
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper.

Cauliflower with an Attitude (the healthiest mash potato like dish you will ever eat!)

Ingredients:

• 6 Cups cauliflower florets, fresh or frozen
• 6 cloves garlic, roasted
• 10 ounces fresh spinach
• 1/2 cup raw cashew butter (soy, hemp, or almond milk if needed to thin)
• 2 tablespoons Dr. Fuhrman’s VegiZest
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg.

* Keep in mind the nutrient density of cauliflower is stratospherically higher than white potatoes or even sweet potatoes for that matter. It is a cruciferous vegetable with incredible anti-cancer properties according to Dr. Fuhrman. So why not explore a great-tasting mashed potatoes-like dish that provides incredible health benefits at the same time? Enjoy.

Some Nutrient-Rich Holiday Tips

1) Instead of ice cream, eat vice cream – real food ice creams that are made from cashews, water, maple syrup and vanilla, for example. 

2) Rather than seasoning the sweet potatoes with butter or margarine, add orange, pineapple, apples, pecans, cinnamon, nutmeg, date sugar, maple syrup, lemon, and/or lime, to add even more flavor.

3) Enjoy freshly-baked bread by itself – there is no need to spread on the artery-clogging butter when whole grain breads and healthy spreads are all around us. You can use raw nut butters, apple butter spreads and others.

If you choose to leave some of your old food favorites as is, eating smaller portions will likely not happen. So, make the majority of your meals with Nutrient-Rich Recipes, and you won’t have to eat as much to get full. You’ll get fulfilled faster eating nutrient-rich foods when hunger shuts off. You also won’t have to deprive yourself of the great tasting foods that are important to you and the holiday spirit as you make nutrient-rich versions.

Don’t worry, during this holiday you will likely overeat and gain a few pounds no matter what you eat because everything centers on food. Bu,t go through the holidays eating nutrient-rich, and you’ll come through in January feeling like a champ. 

You can then lose weight the Nutrient-Rich Way, without the addictive withdrawal people suffer from that prevents them from eating healthy, with simple adjustments, and there is no dieting required!

Achieving a slimmer healtheir body in after the holidays will be allot easier when you have nutrient-rich holidays. You don’t have to be perfect and you never have to sacrifice great tasting foods.

Make only one commitment his holiday season, which kicks off with Thanksgiving. Raise your standard and eat up to 90% or more plant based nutrient-rich foods, not the nutrient poor foods so many of us are used to, that wreak havoc on your body. 

Start the New Year with the confidence and knowing you celebrated well.

27 years ago, I changed my diet from the Standard American Diet "SAD" to a healthier diet and one that would help me lose weight. Was it nutrient-rich? No, not really, but it was most certainly closer to nutrient-rich healthy eating than ever before.

Today, looking back to that time, I would have called myself, a weight loss only "dieter". I really wasn't thinking health, performance or longevity; All that mattered was being as lean as possible as a competitive bodybuilder, and having as little fat on my body. And, I was willing do whatever it took to to lose body fat.

My diet consisted (off season not withstanding) of the typical fitness diet that you learn about in all the muscle and fitness magazines, such as:

• Chicken, fish
• A complex carbohydrate
• Side of vegetables

When not dieting, I would go right back to the SAD.

After a few years of eating that way, I learned about the detrimental effects of eating animal products and became a vegetarian, actually vegan. I had tired of the rigors of being a bodybuilder, and being basically a yo yo "dieter" for that matter, and learned that simple healthy eating combined with an active lifestyle, would enable me to stay lean with much less effort, so I made the switch to a healthier diet.

I didn't really know what healthy eating really meant, but not eating animal products seemed like a great place to start.

Eventually, no longer consuming animal products was not the issue. I was all the healthier for it, but after some very impressive initial results moving to a healthier diet, over time, I began to gain weight. Not because I wasn't eating animal products, but because I was now eating "healthier" foods that weren't genuinely healthy.

In retrospect, I started eating a half baked healthy diet, not quite the standard American diet, but now just a healthier version of it and devoid of dieting. Truth is, pinning my weight gain all on my diet would be misleading. I was also getting older, more focused on work, less on working out, and expending immense amounts of personal energy. By the time I realized that I was gaining weight there were some bigger issues at play, albeit the quality of the food I was eating was a big one.

The food issue was that I was eating too much and eating foods that also contained too much added sodium, sugar, oil and other chemicals that were never supposed to be in my body to begin with.

Too much stress + low personal energy + the overconsumption of "healthy" foods laden with added sugar, salt, oil and chemicals = weight gain, even if you are working out.

Which leads me to the focus of this article.

After years of correcting my course, aligning and improving my lifestyle for balance and health, and having traveled the path from the standard American diet, to weight loss only dieting and then spending years in the realm eating healthier as a vegetarian and vegan, where I was eating many foods that were high in added sodium, oil, sugar, cooked in various ways that did not protect the nutrient quality; I finally realized the difference between plant-based, nutrient rich healthy eating, and the world of half-baked healthy diets.

The difference between half baked healthy diets (which can include the idea of going vegetarian or vegan) that focus in on only one aspect of healthy eating (and at times make more out of it than it needs to be), and nutrient-rich healthy eating is this:

When you are engaged in eating nutrient-rich, you are more a "nutritarian" than a "vegetarian", meaning; you seek out foods that are the most rich in nutrients, do not contain those substances that your body does not need like added sodium, oils and sugar, saturated fats, cholesterol etc, at least 90% of the time or more. You also aim to eat nutrient-rich foods in a way that enable you eat the most volume for the least amount of calories, depending on your needs, and in great tasting ways!

Free from all the problems that are created from half baked healthy diets that are most certainly healthier as compared to weight loss only diets (in most cases), and the standard American diet, but not the healthiest way to eat by a long shot; nutrient rich healthy eating shows how to eat for health. 

Healthy eating has many definitions, such as gluten free, low glyemic, vegetarian, vegan, etc… but once you start eating "nutrient rich", healthy eating gets defined and the truth is, you don't even need to be vegan or vegetarian if you don't want to, or want to maintain a near vegan diet where you eat small amount of animal products for any of a variety of reasons.

Eating is not a religion, at least not the way we promote it hear at NutrientRich.com. Although when each of us makes decisions about our eating style, there are many things that get factored in, in addition to the eating style itself, like protecting animals and the environment. Anybody eating today who is not factoring these two issues in, is not helping the planet and we all know it's in a state of crisis. So keep this in mind.

But for the sake of this article, I simply want to point out the that there is a big difference in terms of health, weight and personal performance, when you begin making the switch from your previous usual standard American diet, weight loss only diet, or half baked healthy diet, where you may not be eating animal foods, but are still including vast amounts of salt, refined sugars, and oils, which is not a genuinely healthy diet.

A nutrient rich eating style can be vegan, but not all vegan eating styles are nutrient rich.

I learned this recently while out on the road traveling. I have been traveling to several of my most cherished healthy lifestyle conferences where I have many good friends and associates also promoting healthy eating. Interestingly, these are conferences that are often organized around the concept of eating vegan or vegetarian. Since not eating animal foods leads to many other changes in the diet and is such an impact full decision personally and environmentally, the vegan and vegetarian community is large and the reason why many conferences appeal to people making this change.

I go to these conferences because I love this community, its a big part of where I learned how to eat healthy and the information is fantastic. But one thing I have learned. After a few years away from these conferences, while I was completing a book, a time during which I had made the switch to nutrient rich healthy eating; nutrient rich healthy eating is healthier than simply not eating meat or eating plant based. 

Not eating meat may be one aspect of plant based healthy eating style, but there are many more, including how you organize your food pyramid, whether or not you eat predominantly vegetable based or starch based, the added salt, oil and sugar content of the foods you are eating, how the food is prepared, whether or not yea eat when you are hungry and more…

I recently ran a test (something I regularly do to see how my body reacts) by eating foods that were simply vegan and paying less attention to some of the attributes above, just to see what would happen and exercise some some other skills of dietary flexibility which are good to have in social situations and when traveling in a world where you can't often meet your ideal preferences. The result, was weight gain, swollen lips, acute colds, and mild headaches. 

Moral of the story?

Once you start eating for health (a genuinely nutrient rich healthy eating diet style) going backwards is not easy or even as pleasure able as you might think. Although I have enjoyed all the foods I've eaten recently, I need no dicipline to clean up my act and get back to the healthiest eating style available: nutrient-rich.

This is not a matter of semantics. It's a matter of mindset and whether or not you are actually eating for healthy, or simply eating healthier. Healthier is good, genuinely healthy is best.

Learn how to eat nutrient-rich in the greatest tasting ways and you will have learned healthy eating for life.

Just this past June 2010 the USDA put out the following message:

“With two thirds of Americans overweight or living on prescription meds, the USDA calls on ALL Americans to eat a more Nutrient Rich Diet!”

The old Four Food Groups are still in play according the USDA, but they are certainly on their way to transitioning to nutrient rich. Remember, the US Gov’t will never promote the healthiest diet, and defy scientific evidence and common sense because it’s job is the economy, promoting the marketplace, not nutrition and there are always competing interests. So you have to keep this in mind.

This is a good video to listen in on; as you can see the switch to a more nutrient rich way of eating is on, and it’s a national movement!

By KIM CAROLLO, ABC News Medical Unit
June 2, 2011

The food pyramid that represented a healthy diet for almost 20 years now gives way to a food plate, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today.

First lady Michelle Obama, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack unveiled the new icon. It’s called MyPlate, and it has four colored sections representing fruits, vegetables, grains and proteins. Next to the plate is a smaller circle representing dairy products.

“MyPlate is a truly simple, powerful visual cue to help people adopt healthy eating habits at meal times,” said Vilsack.

On MyPlate’s website, the USDA emphasizes several important nutrition messages: eat smaller portions, make at least half the plate fruits and vegetables and avoid sugary drinks.

Nutrition experts believe a plate is a good choice.

“It answers the simple question, ‘What should my plate look like at any given meal?’” said Baltimore nutritionist Monica Reinagel.

The original pyramid was released in 1992 and included the four food groups stacked in the shape of a pyramid with the number of recommended servings a person should eat from each group in a day. The widest part of the pyramid shows the foods that should make up most of the diet — breads, cereals and grains. Fats occupy the top of the pyramid. Read more…

When you learn the magnitude of influence that healthy eating is having on your life and learn The Nutrient Rich Way to Eat you will be awed by the impact that it has on your life!

What you want to pay attention to in this development is the trend.

Notice:

– Eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want.
– Less protein, “smallest portion”.
– Far less fat, salt, sugar etc…

The message they are getting across… “huge portion of fruits and vegetables” and “the protein should be the side dish!”

The switch is catching on.

What was so surprising was the intense focus on a "plant based diet", a term you only learned among the early adopters and "foodies" in years past, and the use of the new term in nutrition "nutrient rich".

From the "Skinny On Nuts"

Vocabulary Lesson:

In the past few years, a new term has been added to the nutrition dictionary: nutrient rich (nutrient density to those who want to be really fancy). The American Dietetic Association defines nutrient density as a way to compare the nutrients provided to the calorie count in a single food. According to the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, nutrient rich foods are foods that provide substantial amounts of vitamins and minerals for relatively few calories (USDA, 2005)2005).

National Peanut Board launches new skinnyonnuts.com site to assist (in making the Switch to Rich!)

ATLANTA, March 09, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — While most consumers say they agree with recommendations in the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans that call for eating a more plant-based diet — rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and other plant-based foods — only a third believe they’re knowledgeable about how to do so.

That’s one key finding in research commissioned by the National Peanut Board (NPB) that led to the creation of skinnyonnuts.com – a new web site focused on helping consumers decipher the recently released dietary guidelines and increasing their consumption of nuts and other plant-based foods.

“Americans have never been more conscious about eating nutritious foods, but they’re saying they need help to turn that desire into action,” explained registered dietitian Deanna Segrave-Daly.

Along with information about plant-based diets, skinnyonnuts.com features nutrition and health information, recipes and energy-boosting snack ideas. It also presents tips on eating a gluten-free diet and managing food allergies.

“When you consider that 90 percent of American pantries contain one or more jars or peanut butter, sometimes the challenge is as straightforward as connecting the dots to foods people already enjoy,” said Raffaela Marie Fenn, president and managing director of the National Peanut Board. “That’s precisely why we created this new site.”

Among the research findings:

• While 66 percent of respondents believe they are very or generally knowledgeable about nutrition and diet overall, only 33 percent say they are very or generally knowledgeable about plant-based diets.
• 67 percent did not know that eating a more plant-based diet could help manage overeating and craving.
• 38 percent said say they’re mostly or usually eating a plant-based diet today, with 68 percent admitting they definitely or probably should consume more plant-based foods.
• According to respondents, three challenges in particular make it difficult for them to eat a more plant-based diet: eating out or eating at other peoples’ homes, staying with a plant-based diet and finding tasty, enjoyable foods and recipes.
• Fewer than half (41 percent) of respondents said they are very or generally knowledgeable about nuts, their nutritional value or the role they play in eating a more plant-based diet.

Read More…

Learn more about making the Switch to Rich!

The reason that healthy foods are so expensive is simple economics. Even though recent trends have pointed to an increased demand of healthy, natural and organic food, supply is still very low and the cost to produce them is very high.

One important factor that makes food healthy is freshness. Fruits and vegetables can only grow in specific climates of the world and only at certain times of the year. Usually this climate area is far from your house, and even though it is only grown for a few months out of the year, is demanded all the time.

We want to eat kiwis and strawberries all year round, right? To make this a reality, companies need to store the food in giant air conditioned warehouses and ship the food across the world to meet local demand. As you can imagine, this is a very expensive process and the cost is passed onto the consumer.

On the other hand, unhealthy foods are grown (or raised) in huge quantities. For example corn that is used to make high fructose corn syrup (the ingredient that adds sugar to everything including candy, fruit juice and soda) is grown all around the world and is heavily subsidized in this country. Manufacturers have a cheap supply of sugar that they use to make all sorts of unhealthy foods.

Until the demand of healthy food rises above the demand for unhealthy foods, the supply won’t expand and the prices won’t come down. Fortunately, with the country starting to notice that buying expensive food now can prevent expensive hospital bills later, the mood is changing. People are starting to realize that paying a bit more for healthy foods can really pay off in many ways. That’s why we spend so much time here at NutrientRich.com promoting more intake of nourishing foods! The more people eat right, the better chance costs will decrease so spread the word!

Tell us what you think about the cost of nutrient rich foods and how you deal with this unfortunate reality in our current society! You can post and share your comments below….

The following is a question that patients frequently ask me: “How much protein should I eat?” or “How do I know I am getting enough protein?” It seems that in the last decade there has been increase in protein (or lack of protein) paranoia.

You will be inspired and informed when you listen to this interview with thought leader John Allen Mollenhauer the Founder of The Lifestyle Coaching Center and founder of Nutrient Rich.com. During this interview John Allen busts the protein myth and opens up the food conversation to levels of enthusiasm that will leave you feeling jazzed to be alive.

Find out how the worlds best foods can nourish you to the core, energize your body/mind, and help you naturally reach and maintain an ideal weight.

FREE to all members of her site for one week! Go there, she’s got some great articles, particularly on eating a gluten free diet.

“How much protein should I eat?” or “How do I know I am getting enough protein?” Plus a whole lot of other insights!

Click here to listen now

*All interviews can be downloaded and listened to anytime, anywhere on an MP3 player