Most people believe that food quality is all about calories and those calories alone are responsible for weight gain or loss, health or disease, longevity or premature death. Although calories play a role, this is far from the whole story. The foods we eat provide information to each and every cell in our body and each of our bodies may respond to the same food in different ways. This information can actually turn on and off genes in our bodies meaning in many cases, the food has a greater impact on our overall health and weight than our family history. This may explain why some people gain weight or loose weight more easily or why certain people get certain diseases and others do not.

Although many factors play a role in obesity and other diseases influenced by food, we know that the nutrients in the food or lack of nutrients play an essential role. Our bodies are complex and if we want them to function optimally and free of chronic weight gain and disease we must continually provide it with the right information.  If we are always eating foods low in nutrients (such as the Standard American Diet), our bodies struggle to maintain a healthy state and eventually disease develops. Weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, autoimmune disease, strokes and cancer can all be prevented by giving our bodies the right nutrients/information.

We must first start by knowing which foods are the most beneficial. This has been of great debate due to how difficult it is to conduct scientific studies on food and disease outcomes however there is a general consensus among food scientist and doctors adequately trained in nutrition that food quality matters.

A high quality diet would include:

1) A wide variety of fruits and vegetables (Excluding tomatoes and ketchup which are reported as the most common vegetables eaten in America)

2) Minimally processed food or food in it its most natural form (avoid prepackaged foods)

3) Foods low in pesticides and chemicals (see Dirty Dozen/Clean 15)

4) Organic, Non-GMO foods

5) If consuming meat, chicken or dairy it should be organic, grass fed without hormones and antibiotics.

6) If consuming fish it should be wild smaller fish (salmon, mackerel, cod, halibut, snapper etc)

7) If consuming grains only whole grains or minimally processed (Quinoa, Steel cut oats)