The recently released 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) encourage us to “Make Every Bite Count” for a healthy life, both now and as we age. What we eat has an important impact on our health, yet our daily food choices don’t reflect the science around nutrition and health according to Food and Health Communications. The science is clear that diet-related chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, liver disease, and some types of cancer, are major public health problems. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, and major risk factors like high blood pressure and high LDL and total cholesterol are strongly implicated in heart disease and stroke.
We can “Make Every Bite Count” by choosing nutrient-dense foods. Nutrient-dense foods are foods that contain important vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other health-promoting nutrients without a lot of added sugars, saturated fat or sodium. For example, an apple is a nutrient-dense food, while caramel apples contain added sugars. A baked potato is a nutrient-dense food, while potato chips or French fries are high in saturated fat and sodium.
Try these ideas to “Make Every Bite Count”:
Include fruits and/or vegetables with every meal and snack, aiming for a variety of different colors throughout the week. For example, add blueberries and a banana to cereal for breakfast. Include both a salad and cooked vegetables with dinner.
Choose carrots with hummus or an apple for snacks. Look for crackers, bread, pasta, rice, and cereal with the word “whole” used to describe the first ingredient.
Choose foods that are less processed. Read the ingredient list and choose foods with ingredients that you can pronounce and visualize. For example, crackers that contain just whole wheat and salt are preferable to crackers made with enriched flour, vegetable oil, monosodium glutamate, yeast extract, lactic acid, and disodium inosinate.
Use fresh foods that you prepare yourself. This could look like putting peanut butter on a slice of whole grain wheat bread instead of buying peanut butter crackers or an energy bar. You could also try using an air-fryer to prepare chicken instead of making frozen breaded chicken strips. Preparing your foods yourself will also help you reduce your sodium consumption, since pre-packaged foods and restaurant foods contain higher levels of sodium than what you’d make at home. Read food labels for sodium content and choose foods with less sodium.
Use less sugar in the foods and beverages you prepare at home. For example, you might make a favorite dessert with half of the sugar in the recipe, or enjoy coffee or tea without added sweeteners. Choose more fruit and fewer sweet desserts such as cookies, cakes, candy and pastry. Make unflavored water your primary beverage.
Eat fewer foods that are higher in saturated fat. These foods include hamburgers, tacos, burritos, deli lunch meats (except for turkey and chicken), commercially-made desserts and sweet snacks, full-fat dairy products and cheese, palm oil, coconut oil, and palm kernel oil and foods that are made with these oils.
For more information, go to https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/ and https://www.myplate.gov/
