Research overwhelmingly suggests that quality is the most important factor in one’s diet for long-term health and disease prevention. Most health professionals define a higher-quality diet as one that focuses on choosing predominantly whole foods that are minimally processed, nutrient-dense, and with little to no added sugars or other ingredients. This means that traditional eating tools such as calorie counting, measuring portions, and tracking nutrient grams aren’t effective measures to ensure overall diet quality.
Yet prioritizing diet quality doesn’t mean that quantities (such as calories or macronutrients) aren’t important. Research clearly demonstrates that routinely exceeding calorie and/or nutrients can lead to increases in body weight, disease risk, and inflammation. A key component of consuming a higher-quality diet is eating those healthier foods within recommended amounts for health or specific conditions, but the optimal intake and approach to meal planning will be unique to an individual’s health goals.
However, many (including myself) want guidelines to ensure they are consuming a higher-quality daily diet, as well as not regularly exceeding energy intake, food group, or nutrient. Recognizing this, Meals That Heal provides several techniques and tools for helping you develop a balanced, higher-quality diet, in addition to recipes that emphasize the use of higher-quality foods.
TOOLS FOR BALANCING QUALITY WITH QUANTITY
• Meal Planning and Daily Intake: The information provided in Rethinking the Dinner Plate (page 33) is a method I use daily to plan meals and overall daily intake. It’s simple with no counting, but guides you in eating close to the recommended amounts of food groups. And choosing higher-quality foods (see “best choices” for each macronutrient on pages 26–30) can provide a nutrient-dense diet. For those who need slightly more defined parameters, try planning daily food intake using the amounts in the Eating Recommendations (pages 22–23) as a starting place, adapting as needed for activity or other factors.
• Nutritional Information: You’ll find nutrient information provided for each recipe that includes total calories, total grams of macronutrients, and amounts of a few key micronutrients. The intention in providing these values is to give a more complete picture of a recipe’s nutritional qualities for each individual to support specific health goals.
• USDA Nutrient Guidelines: Every recipe in this book fits within the most recent Dietary Guidelines, as well as meets the specific condition-based recommendations in Chapter 10. These nutrient guidelines are provided below and should be used as a general guide.
DAILY NUTRITION GUIDE
|
Women ages 25 to 50 |
Women over 50 |
Men ages 25 to 50 |
Men over 50 |
CALORIES |
2,000 |
2,000* |
2,700 |
2,500 |
PROTEIN |
50g |
50g |
63g |
60g |
FAT |
65g* |
65g* |
88g* |
83g* |
SATURATED FAT |
20g* |
20g* |
27g* |
25g* |
CARBOHYDRATES |
304g |
304g |
410g |
375g |
FIBER |
25 to 35g |
25 to 35g |
25 to 35g |
25 to 35g |
ADDED SUGARS |
38g |
38g |
38g |
38g |
CHOLESTEROL |
300mg* |
300mg* |
300mg* |
300mg* |
IRON |
18mg |
8mg |
8mg |
8mg |
SODIUM |
2,300mg* |
1,500mg* |
2,300mg* |
1,500mg* |
CALCIUM |
1,000mg |
1,200mg |
1,000mg |
1,000mg |
*Or less, for optimum health
Nutritional values used in our calculations either come from The Food Processor, Version 10.4 (ESHA Research), or are provided by food manufacturers.