If you want to know what makes a healthy diet, it is easy to get the information these days. Social media is awash with tips and most of us know the basics, anyway: Say no to chips and soda; eat fresh fruit and vegetables instead. It’s just a question of putting it into action in our day-to-day lives.
But do the items we have saved in our minds as “good for you,” like fresh fruit, vegetables, or whole-grains and pulses, still live up to their reputation?
The short answer is “not necessarily.”
“The mineral content has declined in a wide range of food,” said David Montgomery, a geologist in the Earth and Space Sciences department at the University of Washington in the northwestern US.
The question is: why?
Dilution effect lowers nutrient levels in some foods
Montgomery has researched different farming practices and how they affect soil and thus our food. For his book, “What your food ate,” he looked at roughly 1,000 peer-reviewed studies into nutrient-levels in foods, including fruits, vegetables and grains. He found that there had been no consistent change over the past few decades in the level of macronutrients in food. That included carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
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But the same cannot be said for micronutrients, like vitamins and minerals, such as iron and zinc.
“We don’t need a lot of them, but they are central to our health,” Montgomery told DW. “Mineral-levels in particular are affected by farming practices.”
For example, when grains are bred to yield double the amount of wheat, it can lead to lower nutrient levels per ear of wheat.
This can happen with grain varieties that do not alter the amount of minerals and nutrients they absorb from the soil, but which are bred to grow twice as much wheat — that same amount of goodness is then spread over more resulting crop.
That’s the so-called dilution effect. And it’s one reason, says Montgomery, why some healthy foods today are not quite as healthy as what our grandparents used to eat.
‘Minimizing disturbance of the soil’ leads to more nutritious food
The soil in which our food grows also plays an important role in how nutritious food is on our plates.
Modern farming techniques, like tilling and the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, disturb the balance of fungi and microbes present in the soil. And if this balance gets thrown off, plants may be less able to absorb nutrients as well as phytochemicals, which have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
That’s why Montgomery calls for “regenerative farming practices, which involve minimizing physical and chemical disturbance of the soil, keeping living plant roots in the soil at all times and growing a diversity of crops.”
If you do that, it enhances the so-called nutrient cycle and production of phytochemicals. And that “leads to more of these compounds that we want in our food actually being in our food,” said Montgomery.
And why do we want them in our food? While phytochemicals aren’t essential to our health and are not classified as nutrients, they protect our cells against damage from environmental toxins and help neutralize free radicals that could damage our DNA.
All plants produce them, so you find them in anything from grains to the veggies in your salad and the berries in your porridge.
On top of that, the richer food is in phytochemicals, the richer it is in taste.
Better known micronutrients include:
- Vitamin C: Good for your tooth- and cardiovascular health and contributes to a healthy immune system. Found in peppers, kale, strawberries or oranges
- Zinc: The body does not produce zinc on its known, but needs it for healthy growth and healing wounds. Found in sea food, oats or eggs
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The merits of a balanced diet
Astrid Donalies a nutritional scientist at Germany’s Federal Center for Nutrition, is not worried about nutrients in the food we grow. A more important message for consumers, she says, is to eat a variety of foods
It is easier for us to achieve a balanced diet than it was for our grandparents, says Donalies, because we have access to a wider variety of fruit and vegetables throughout the year.
In the past, winter in Germany, for example, meant eating a whole lot of beets and potatoes, and not much fruit aside from apples and pears.
But that doesn’t mean we should always eat strawberries in winter, just because we can. “You should choose regional and seasonal produce,” Donalies said. “That way, fruit and vegetables will be particularly fresh, and shorter transport routes protect the environment.”
Silke Restemeyer, a nutritionist at the German Nutrition Society, an independent Non-Government Organization, also emphasizes the importance of a varied diet. She does have a couple of recommendations of what this diet should contain.
“People who eat a lot of fruit and vegetables less frequently experience hypertension, heart disease and strokes,” Restemeyer told DW. “We’ve also seen indications that illnesses like cancer and dementia are less common in people who eat more fruit and vegetables.”
Eat more whole-wheat and less meat
That’s not all there is to a healthy diet. Restemeyer also recommends legumes like beans and lentils for their high fiber content. They also provide our body with micronutrients like vitamin B1, vitamin B6, as well as iron, zinc, and magnesium. They don’t make our blood sugar shoot up rapidly, which means a regular portion of lentil soup, for example, will keep you full for a longer time than a pastry or a burger.
The nutritionist suggests eating a handful of nuts a day ― they have vital fatty acids and are good for your heart.
When choosing wheat products, like bread or pasta, you should go for whole-wheat alternatives, since they have more fiber. That “lowers the risk of type-2 diabetes, fat metabolism disorders, colon cancer and cardiovascular disease,” Restemeyer said.
These are just some examples of what can help keep you healthy. The idea, in general, is to consume more plant products, more whole-wheat, less meat and fewer soft drinks, Restemeyer said.
Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany
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