How to get the most from what you eat with nutrient dense foods

You want to eat well. You can only consume so much in a day, so you want food that is both pleasurable and as nutritious as possible at every meal. Consider adding more nutrient dense foods to your diet. Nutrient-dense foods are simply those that have a high nutrient content for the number of calories that they contain.  

Need a great place to start? Look to delicious, fresh, fermented veggies from Hosta Hill for a nutrient dense choice you can really enjoy. With award-winning, complex flavors and the added benefits of fermentation, you can’t go wrong. Enjoy a jar of our sauerkraut, kimchi or try our fermented hot sauces and krautonics today!

How to know your food is nutritious

According to the American Heart Association, the standard American diet is heavy on energy-rich foods, but ultimately nutrient poor. 

What does that mean? Well, when you are cruising the aisles of your local food store, a lot of the familiar offers and foods we turn to as regular parts of our diet are actually not all that nutritious. Ever heard of “empty calories?” 

This has a lot to do with processing. Nutrient dense food is the most nutritious naturally. They are rich in vitamins and minerals that are important for your health and well-being. Foods like organic produce and grass-fed beef have high concentrations of nutrients without heavy processing and don’t have additives like sugar or sodium to chip away at their benefits. 

When choosing what to eat, Americans tend to look at calorie count and fat content first, and in fact these are usually itemized at the top of the nutritional information label on our foods. To identify nutrient density, we actually need to look farther down the label - for things like vitamin and mineral content. Other nutrients required for our health include things like omega-3s, antioxidants, protein, and fiber. 

Examples of nutrient dense foods:

  • Seafood, especially salmon

  • Some fruits and vegetables (see below)

  • Nuts, especially unsalted almonds, pistachios, and walnuts

  • Legumes like beans and peas

  • Lean meat like grass-fed beef

  • Milk, yogurt (if not flavored with added sugars) and cheese

Not all fruits and veggies are the same when it comes to nutrition. Blueberries are bursting with antioxidants, kale with vitamins, and sweet potatoes with complex carbohydrates, for example. And there is compelling research that suggests organic produce is significantly higher in antioxidants than its non-organic counterparts.

Processing foods can lead to a decrease in their nutritional content, but not so with fermentation. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! Fermented foods, from kefir to sauerkraut, actually have increased vitamin and nutritional content, beyond the original ingredients. They are nutrient dense foods and have the added benefit of the fermentation process to make sure the nutrients they contain are really accessible to your body. 

Are you actually absorbing the nutrients in your food? 

Fermentation actually increases nutrient availability, also known as “bioavailability.” The term bioavailability refers to the proportion or fraction of a nutrient, consumed in the diet, that is absorbed and utilized by the body.

Think of it this way: the cellular structure of a leafy vegetable can actually make it hard for our bodies to break it down and get to all the amazing vitamins within. But fermentation is like a “pre-digestion” process, breaking the foods down into smaller nutritional parts that can get into your system more efficiently! 

If you want to add more nutrient dense foods to your diet, starting with fermented foods is a great choice. Hosta Hill’s delicious veggies are sourced locally and grown organically. The nutrient rich ingredients are farther enriched by the chemical magic of fermentation, making them more readily available to your body!

Hosta Hill is a family-owned, women-run business, committed to producing high-quality, naturally fermented veggies, packaged by hand and sold raw and unpasteurized.

Check out our offers online, or see where you can get yours locally in New England and New York! 


source: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/are_you_absorbing_the_nutrients_you_eat